If you're a media critic with unlimited space, and one of the biggest media stories for going on three weeks has been a cable news host promoting phony racial conspiracy theories about the president, and a media watchdog organization has released an ad it plans to run during that host's show criticizing his promotion of those conspiracy theories, doesn't it look pretty strange if you don't cover the ad?

Now how does it look if you've steadfastly refused to criticize that cable news channel's president despite his false and misleading support for that host's conspiracy theorizing?

Now, how does it look if you get a paycheck from that cable news channel?

It looks like you're ducking your responsibilities as the Washington Post's media critic for fear of offending your bosses at CNN, that's how it looks.

UPDATE: That ad Howard Kurtz is ignoring? Youtube viewers aren't ignoring it:

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