Howard Kurtz is joining the Fox News Channel as its latest on-air star after working for several years at CNN, the flagship news network of the hated “mainstream media” that Fox news hounds love to bash.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/howard-kurtz-leaves-cnn-for-fox-93109.html?hp=r14

This is an interesting development.

Kurtz wrote for years as media critic for the Washington Post, also while serving as host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” which covered media issues for the news network.

I’ll actually watch Fox when Kurtz joins the network and I’ll listen for any hint that Kurtz joins the pack of “mainstream media” bashers who routinely stick it in the eye of Fox’s more “liberal” competitors.

As Politico reports, Kurtz wasn’t a member of the anti-Fox pack of journalists that have blasted Fox for the rightward slant in its news coverage. He would ding Fox occasionally, but he also took shots at the other networks and media organizations. I’ve always found Kurtz to be a fair critic.

Now he’ll become a part of network that keeps touting its “fair and balanced” approach to reporting, which actually is a ruse. The network isn’t fair or balanced, so I just wish it would stop making the false claim. And no, it’s no more unbalanced than, say, MSNBC, which tilts leftward in its reporting and commentary. The difference is that MSNBC makes no claims of fairness and “balance.”

I’m anxious to see what kind of conversion Kurtz makes when he joins Fox. I hope he stays true to his record as an equal-opportunity critic.