Scanning the globe for sports media headlines:

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Media critic Howard Kurtz turned the tables on himself for making an incredible blunder on the Jason Collins story.

From the AP story:

Media critic Howard Kurtz used his CNN show on Sunday to point a finger at himself, apologizing for a story on gay basketball player Jason Collins that he said was riddled with errors and shouldn’t have been written in the first place.

The extraordinary edition of CNN’s ”Reliable Sources” contained not only his apology but also a session with two other media critics who sharply questioned Kurtz’s credibility.

Kurtz wrote in The Daily Beast that Collins, the NBA center who made headlines last week by being the first active player in one of the four major U.S. pro sports leagues to come out as gay, had hidden a previous engagement to a woman in his announcement. In fact, Collins revealed the engagement in his first-person Sports Illustrated story and in a subsequent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Kurtz said Sunday that he had read the Sports Illustrated story too quickly and missed the reference to a fiancee there and elsewhere. He said he was wrong to rush the story without seeking comment from Collins, was too slow to correct himself when it became clear he was wrong and made an inappropriate comment (about playing ”both sides of the court”) in a video report.

Besides his ”sloppy and inexcusable” errors, Kurtz said, the story itself was insensitive and shouldn’t have been written.

”I apologize to readers, to viewers and, most importantly, to Jason Collins and his fiancee,” said Kurtz, who spent many years as a media writer for The Washington Post. ”I hope this very candid response can help me earn back your trust over time. It is something I am very committed to doing.’

 

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If Tim Tebow is done with football, what about a next career in TV? The New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman says he would be ideal as an analyst for college football.

And didn’t the SEC just launch a new network?

Raissman writes:

What about Tebow as interviewer? For starters, Tebow could go one-on-one with Johnny Manziel.

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In his weekly sports media column, SI’s Richard Deitsch says former Illinois star Stephen Bardo is going to the Big Ten Network.

“Most people at ESPN or CBS –they want to be at the top level,” Bardo said. “I think I did a pretty good job of establishing myself there and I think I am good at what I do. So now I thought: What did I want? Did I want to be at ESPN and hope to get an upper-echelon assignment, or go to a place where I could be more appreciated? The Big Ten is part of the footprint where I played, and I think I have a brand there.”

 

Hey, I agree with Will Leitch. At Sports on Earth, he writes about how much he likes Mike Breen.

From Leitch:

The key to Breen is he is always forceful without forcing it. He hits all the big moments in a broadcast without owning them. He is, in the purest sense, a describer. He doesn’t try to paint some poetic picture or conjure up anything. He just tells you what’s going on in the plainest possible sense. He has an even tone that has a touch of humor to it that’s more cornpoke than ironic-wry; if you’ll forgive me, he sounds more like a Midwesterner than a New York City native to me.

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Nice Kentucky Derby rating for NBC. Sports Media Watch.

Allen Kenny at Awful Announcing says viewers about going to have to pay for the new SEC Network.

Al Bernstein talks about his new book with Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News.

Mary Byrne of USA Today elected second VP of APSE.