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The Daily Beast Fires Star Media Reporter After Column On Gay NBA Player

The Daily Beast Fires Star Media Reporter After Column On Gay NBA Player

howard kurtz

Leigh Vogel/Getty Images

The Daily Beast has fired media reporter Howard Kurtz hours after retracting his article about gay NBA player Jason Collins.

Dylan Byers of Politico broke the news, and editor-in-chief Tina Brown confirmed that they "parted ways."

Wednesday Kurtz wrote that Collins didn't admit that he was engaged to a woman.

That was factually incorrect.

In his coming out column in Sports Illustrated, Collins wrote, "When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her."

In the retraction earlier Thursday, the Daily Beast wrote simply, "The Daily Beast sincerely regrets Kurtz’s error — and any implication that Collins attempted to hide or obscure the engagement."

Kurtz also hosts a CNN show called Reliable Sources, and contributes to a YouTube channel/website called the Daily Download.

He posted a Daily Download video Wednesday morning talking about Collins being engaged. In it, he reiterated the lie about the engagement, and had this awkward exchange:

Kurtz: "If you leave out the fact that you dated this woman for eight years and you were engaged to be married, then you have not told the whole story. I think this really muddies the plot line here."

Co-host (Lauren Ashburn): "What are you saying he's not gay?"

Kurtz: "Well obviously in basketball terms he has played both sides of the court."

Here's the full video:

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