on the buzz meeter this sunday, the finger pointing is getting ugly. conservative commentators accusing barack obama and eric holder of exploiting race to their advantage. >> but to those two men, race has been a shield and a sword that they've used effectively to defend themselves and to attack others. >> and today the right wing media is proving the point, one side accuses the attorney general of, quote, playing the race card. fox news accused him of playing the victim and whining about how he's treated. >> are the media illuminating or

inflaming the situation? a federal confrontation with the law-breaking nevada rancher becomes a major media story, manly on fox. was it actually big news? ed snowden has a bizarre question and answer session with vladimir putin as his nsa leak leads to pulitzer prizes for two newspapers. has his conduct overshadowed the awards. plus, more of our interview with ex-cbs correspondent sharyl attkisson as another investigative reporter leaves. i'm howard kurtz and this is "mediabuzz." happy easter, everyone. it began with attorney general eric holder getting grilled on the hill and explaining about his treatment at al sharpton's annual convention. that brought sharp criticism from pundits on the right who in turn were hammered by pundits on the left.

both sides declined the use of race. >> what attorney general has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment? >> that's right. >> what president has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment? >> do you think that the house committee called him in and said, let's get the black guy today? is that what they did? does anybody believe that? let's get the black guy today. >> britt hume, as i see it, is race baiting by presenting the position, goldie, that both barack obama and attorney general eric holder have used races, both a shield and a sword. >> i am sick and tired of your friends and party playing this bs race card. it is mean. it is evil. it is devive is. it is divisive and it is slanderous. >> a percentage voted against barack obama in 2012. >> are the media making matters

worse? joining us now, lauren ashburn, ed pinkerton and kelly goss, special correspondent for the root. >> it's like cat nip for journalists. it reflects a divided country. it reflects a divided media, for example, huffington post, holder says he isn't playing the race card. news max, holder plays the race card. then jonathan from "new york" magazine says race has been the real story of obama's presidency. >> when it comes to this latest incident involving eric holder, jim, who didn't actually mention race, though he brought it up in the context of speaking to a largely african-american audience, are conservative commentators themselves injecting race into the political dialogue by bringing it up in this fashion? >> i think the tone that holder took in front of the national action network was clearly playing for sympathy from that

audience. what i would focus on if i were the media editor, if there was such a thing subis why is al sharpton the go-to person for racial discussions, including on msnbc? this is a man who recent revelations show that he was -- informative to the fbi. >> he says he was helping to catch bad guys. >> interesting enough, he there was an allegation. we reported in 2002 and for part of his presidential campaign, now, again, why wasn't he knocked out of the box as a credible authority on anything decades ago is beyond me. >> this is broader than reverend al. are liberal commentators injecting race by denouncing some of the conservative pundits for what they are describing as race baiting. everybody is talking about race. >> yes, everyone is talking about race. no to your first question.

the additional question when we started this segment is does the media make things worse? yes. here's how. there are lots of stories that have to do with race that should be covered, that are not. colbert, paula deen, what did this person mean? we have statistics in housing and the workplace, all these things that don't get the coverage they should. >> because they're not sexy enough. >> they're not sexy. you took the words out of my mouth. i will say this, in terms of who's inflaming who here, the reality is that i've done countless stories, howard, on gop efforts to try to reach out to black voters, which i'm rooting for. i don't think it benefits black voters when one person seems to think they have a better vote. what's frustrating is that this whole perception are the ones stoking the series about racism is not true. "new york" magazine did a slide show a few years ago. the real obstacle for the gop reaching out to black vote serz

not liberal media bias. it's not democrats. it's stupid things republicans say that are racially offensive that are rarely covered. >> i assume you mean stupid things that some republicans say. >> definitely somepublicans say. yes. >> what i sometimes wonder as i listen to this echo chamber, whether there's the media world which likes to pounce on these stories and the real world, lots of average americans talking about these questions, what does eric holder say? what did the pundits say about what he said? >> i think this is mostly an inside the beltway, a very political story. there have been polls that show that people in the country the fly-over country as we like to say are concerned about jobs, putting food on the table. and yes, maybe there are -- they are discussing racial topics but it is not the primary agenda. >> i agree with that. i would just add to it what kelly said. if you want to take an issue where african-americans and republicans could -- and charter

schools, republican politicians like eric cantor and rand paul have gone out of their way to push and advance charter schools. they won major victories, including in new york see, yet it's much more fun for the media to cover the latest food fight. >> much more fun but is it less responsible? >> more fun and less responsible. >> that seems to be the consensus here. >> i can't look at this thing and not think of the easter candy sheep or whatever they're called. >> peeps. >> the racial baiting stories are the peeps of the media. >> can i say one thing, too, echoing this, that's where the issue is, where republicans and democrats, including of different races have worked across the aisle, which is one of the reasons it gets less coverage. it's too kumbaya. everyone is trying to get along. >> i am all for coverage of inner city problems, housing,

where the problems affect all people of all rations and ethnicities. >> we sometimes see here, anyone that criticizes are random. >> i do think that the word racist is thrown around too casually and cavalierly. it takes the power out of it when there aretruisms of racism. race card and race baiting, colin powell, one of the greatest men who served our country was called a race baiter because he said some of the criticism of the president is racist. i don't think anyone thinks secretary powell is a crazy liberal activist. >> you have to agree with bill o'reilly. he's making sense when we saw on the clip that he said, that people didn't decide to go after the black guy today. they decided to go after the attorney general. i think that the controversies that we cover, the controversies

as we call them, are ginned up, because people don't like what eric holder or anybody else who's a person of color has to say. it automatically becomes this race issue in the media which then explodes. >> if eric holder wanted to be a hero to republicans, he could look into solyndra and benghazi, for example. he won't do it for some strange reason. >> i'm not saying he shouldn't be criticized but to go back to your first answer, it seems like cat nip, everybody pounces on it and the argument itself fuels cable ratings. i want to turn to a slightly lighter topic but one that stunned me with all this political punditry about chelsea's baby, chelsea clinton announcing, with her mother, that she's pregnant. you have all of these smart analysts saying what is the impact of this on 2016? are we perhaps overanalyzing, overthinking what ought to be a routine, joyous occasion? the daughter of a woman who yes, who will probably run for

president is pregnant with her first child. >> you've been in this town for how many years and you don't have a cynical bone in your body? i think a lot of reporters think maybe this was planned. >> maybe this was planned? you don't think that chelsea clinton and her husband are entitled to try to have a baby whenever they want? >> sure. >> they looked at the political calendar. if it was to be planned, it would be planned for next year. >> it could be that the pregnancy was a happy event, then the mainstream media trying to help hillary clinton's 2016 presidential campaign make this baby the royal baby. the bush first grand child got no attention at all to speak of. >> if we're talking about media conspiracy theories, the only conspiracy is that people have seen how much coverage the kate middleton and prince william's baby has gotten. they know that's a story.

that's a friendly "people" magazine story that people love to click on. that's why news outlets ran with it. >> this is chelsea. she's not running for anything. >> people have been doing the america's royal baby. was this story overanalyzed and overcovered? absolutely. am i pleading guilty? absolutely. i was in the room that day when she made the announcement. what happens when i leave here not covering the one thing that everyone considers news. >> you have to realize this is hillary clinton. she's most likely running for president. it hasn't been good for her. a lot of people say she's too old. there is coverage, howie. >> the guy who ran in 2012, he was a grandfather. how much coverage did that get? >> people didn't say he was too old to run. >> isn't that sexist? come on. >> yes. are you baiting me. >> yes. >> what is that called, sex baiting or sexist baiting? >> grab the bait. >> of course it's not. >> you're wrong.

>> we have to get a break. send me a tweet about our show during this hour. @howardkurtz. we'll read the best ones at the end of the program. when we come back, an armed standoff of a western rancher becomes a tv drama, or was he turned into a hero? and the person who won a pulitzer thanks to ed snowden. defiance is in our bones. defiance never grows old. citracal maximum. calcium citrate plus d.

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that corporate trial by fire when every slacker gets his due. and yet, there's someone around the office who hasn't had a performance review in a while. someone whose poor performance is slowing down the entire organization. i'm looking at you phone company dsl. go to comcastbusiness.com/ checkyourspeed. if we can't offer faster speeds or save you money we'll give you $150. comcast business built for business. when federal authorities got into a tense confrontation with a nevada rancher named cliven bundy, it was all over fox news. bundy grant an interview to sean hannity. that prompted some criticism from the left. >> this comes days after

hundreds of people showed their support for the rancher, saying this battle is not about his cattle or unpaid grazing fees. but states' rights and government overreach. it looks like the government is bullying this cattle farmer, mr. bundy, who i'm sympathetic with. he's trying to make a living. >> i don't feel sorry for the guy at all. he's a tax dodge. >> what would happen if they came in the early morning hours one day to your ranch. >> get your army away from my ranch and clark county public land and keep it out. if they come, we'll deal with them tonight. that's what we have to do, we'll just deal with you. if you have guts enough to do it, come on. >> fox news and sean hannity should be ashamed of their coverage of this law breaker. i think sean hannity is cheerleading for armed conflict with the federal government. >> those are strong words, jim pinkerton. >> they are strong words. i think the mainstream media have done their best to slime bundy. "the new york times" keeps calling him a deadbeat over and

over again. the larger issues here, the media are ignoring. why does the government own all the land in nevada? where is it written that everybody in nevada, every farmer and rancher would be a federal tenant in the first place? how did that happen? >> this notion that fox has become a champion for bundy, fair or unfair? >> sean hannity has become a champion, no doubt about it. i think he speaks to -- something erupted in the '70s and '80s in the west and it became a an important part of the coalition. now with fracing and this energy thing, the stakes are higher. the institute for energy research has a study showing there's 128 trillion, with a tt, trillion dollars and oil and natural gas under federal land. there are restrictions that bundy is up against. >> that's not driving the coverage. in your view, is fox overplaying this story. >> this is not a news story.

it's being treated like it really is -- i can't even look at the war coverage or something that warrants that level of attention. it doesn't. i think that's what is the misfire here. >> it's similar to what we were talking about at the top of the show, which is race. this shows, this story about the bundys shows the divisive media culture, right? you have rachel maddow of msnbc who is saying, well, no one was shot. i bet fox news was really disappointed. that's a horrible, horrible, horrible thing to say. and the fact that she would say it just shows that she wants to do the blame game and not really cover the story. because that's the sound bite that was covered. >> but i don't think i can recall another incident where a guy who everybody basically acknowledges is a law breaker who didn't pay his grazing taxes or fees for 20 years, has been -- even if there was and it

appears there was, a severe federal reaction has been made into, if not a hero, a sympathetic figure. >> the bureau of land management's attempt to manipulate the endangered specie act, to use the desert tortoise -- >> we're going to wipe out your liveliho livelihood, deal with it, he looks bad. if you say why did the government own the land and use the endangered species act to crush this guy, those are legitimate questions, too. >> bundy said he doesn't recognize the u.s. government. he only recognizes the state of the government of nevada. if a left winger would have said that, would the coverage have been different? >> of course. i don't see some people being treated as national heroes, those are people who are

legitimately getting dealt a bad hand. this country is becoming more urban and racially mixed. that's who the story is targeting. it's not a major story. i think that's why this is really egregious here. >> the salt lake city tribune had a piece about western lawmakers, talk about why the governments are talking about the land. >> thank you very much for joining us this sunday. up next, if ed snowden broke the law, how did two newspapers win journalism's highest honor based on his leak? bart gelman, in a moment. ♪ [ male announcer ] when fixed income experts... ♪ ...work with equity experts... ♪ ...who work with regional experts... ♪

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bart gelman and "the washington post" won a pulitzer prize as did glenn greenwald and the guardian.

their source, ed snowden was involved in a bizarre spectacle when he called into a russian tv show and asked a question of vladimir putin. >> they also found that they unreasonably intrude into the private lives of ordinary citizens, individuals who have never been suspected of any wrongdoing or criminal activity. does russia intercept were store or analyze in any way the f individuals? >> and joining me now from new york is a three-time pulitzer winner, bart gelman. welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> let me start with this fundamental question. any hesitation in the beginning in publishing nsa documents that somebody broke the law to give them to you? >> we had all kinds of hesitation about what to publish and when in terms of verifying the information, in terms of considering the security impact. the fact that our source was not allowed to give us the material -- am i supposed to

pretend i don't know it? one of the most significant consequential stories of my lifetime and i certainly wouldn't hold it back because someone gave it to me without authority. no one has. scoop after scoop over the last decades has depended on people who broke the rules or broke the law in providing that information to reporters. >> it's certainly true, journalists often deal with disreputable sources. as you know, there's been criticism, you and greenwald being called snowden enablers. questions, whether the papers should have published the secrets on the theory that it hurt the country and hurt the administration's anti-terror efforts. >> a great majority of the commentators, a majority of americans think that it has strengthened the country to have this debate. the president said so himself. we have two supreme court justices who say that the legal

challenges raised merit supreme court consideration. a federal judge found part of the program unconstitutional. silicon valley is pretty much on fire with criticism of what the government is doing and taking active efforts to thwart it. congress has introduced all sorts of legislation to change the boundaries between secret intelligence and public accountability. and between secret intelligence and the privacy of ordinary americans. it's hard to say that this debate shouldn't have happened. in fact, i know very few people who say it shouldn't have. >> now, you're not snowden's spokesman or his advocate but when he pulls a stunt like he did with putin, to obviously stage a bit of political theater where he criticizes the u.s. program, does that make you -- does that make you reconsider your opinion of him? >> it's completely irrelevant to the coverage, to the quality of the material that he gave me.

and that he gave other journalists, what his conduct is, whether he broke the law. whether he is helping putin and i'm not his advocate. there have been a lot of pretty loose statements about putin -- about snowden as a russian agent or russian enabler, that have no supporting evidence. what he did on russian tv is open to debate but it is most often debated by people who want to deflect attention from the story that he uncovered. >> some people view this as a document dump, snowden hands the documents electronically to you and greenwald and you publish them. it is not that simple. can you talk about the challenges of turning this into a story that can be published? >> sure. he didn't want, according to him, and i didn't want, to just put it all out there. there are thousands of documents, nothing like that quantity has been made public.

it's hard to understand them. it's hard to understand the significance of them and what i in "the washington post" have been looking for, are stories that raise big public policy questions. is it okay for u.s. government to be sweeping in large quantities of content and data about content of ordinary americans? is that a bargain we even knew we were making? after 9/11? the answer to that is no. there was absolutely no evidence on the public record that the government was sweeping in this vast volume of communications, that the government was breaking into the private data links of google and yahoo! >> let me jump in, bart, because we're a little short on time. >> sure. >> you interviewed snowden in moscow for some 14 hours. >> i did. >> at the beginning, greenwald went to hong kong. you decided not to go. were you concerned about boundaries of reporters and sources, getting too close to ed

snowden. >> i would not have done something that crossed the line. my role is to receive information, to vet it, check his motivations, to check his accuracy. and not to do something else. i'm not saying anything else happened in hong kong. he made decisions for my own reasons, among them by staying in new york where i live and work i had more time to go through the material and prepare stories for publication. >> all right. bart gelman of "the washington post," thanks very much for sharing your views today. >> thanks for having me. there's a big spat over at pulitzer. abc news which teamed up with the center says the hard work of brian ross and other reporters should have been recognized, even though tv networks aren't eligible for pulitzer. they say it was limited and geared toward producing a television version of the story.

the center says it won't be bullied by abc. it's too bad this ended in squabbling. chersharyl attkisson made n when she talked here last week. what about the macking of her computer? that's next.

live from america's news headquarters. a shootout at a checkpoint manned by pro-russian separatists. ukraine and russia trading blame for that attack. it's apparently the first armed clash since the deal was reached on thursday to try to ease tensions in eastern ukraine where pro-russian gunmen have seized government buildings in at least ten cities. pope francis celebrating easter sunday in front of an overflowing crowd in st. peter's square. more than 150,000 of the faithful turning out for the mass of the hole left day on the

christian calendar. the pope calling for peace in ukraine and syria and an end to terrorist attacks against christians in nigeria. he called for more attention to the hungry and the neediest here closer to home. i'm eric shawn. i'll see you at the top of the hour at 12:00 eastern time. now back to "mediabuzz." we had a tremendous reaction to last week's interview with sharyl attkisson on why she felt compelled to leave cbs news and the difficulty she faced reporting on the obama administration. we begin with a lingering mystery from her tenure at cbs. >> there was a mysterious episode where your computers were hacked, never resolved as far as i know. you suspect it was the nsa or some outside organization? >> i'm still at the point where i'm letting my lawyer only speak to this, and he's not ready to

speak to it yet. i think there will be more information about this before the end of the year. >> is it fair to say you're suspicious? >> it's fair to say numerous independent analysts have confirmed what we had said earlier, the unauthorized intrugs by sophisticated entities of both my work computer and my home apple computer which i consider hugely offensive and problemsome and we are -- there are a number of investigations going on right now. i think they'll be more information to be heard about that. we're making progress. >> let's talk about the state of investigative reporting. are there more of this than to do the hard digging or the other part of doing investigative reporting, almost by definition, it is controversial. somebody's making a charge.

maybe there are sources that can't go on the record. what do you think? >> if you don't have the stomach as a manager to support and defend investigative and original reporting, it's just a lot of trouble for you. it's nothing more than that. i can see it from the view point of someone who is not committed to it. it's much simpler and easier and there are fewer headaches to doing the celebrity stories and the day of air stories and the weather stories they tend to rely on. i kind of get that. i always felt like part of our job is to serve the audience by giving them information, material, that they're not getting elsewhere. that's what the reporters on the ground ready supposed to be doing, digging up better information. >> isn't that how news organizations make their name? >> that's what you'd like to think, yes. >> right. >> i think there's been a whole turnabout where the lighter stories, the copied story from other media, the ones that get the clicks, the ones they see on the web, popular websites, those stories are rewarded more when

you bring them to the table. they don't draw any negative feedback by and large. and it's just an easy way to cover the news. i'm just not sure that's news. i'm not sure that's serving the public in the best way. >> you think in the case of television networks and stations that have to worry about the fcc, license renewal, obviously that's a powerful tool. it was abused during the nixon administration. under this administration there was a study about bias that was later pulled back about how intrusive questions i would say about how newsrooms operate. do you think that acts as a break on aggressive reporting? >> it's true to say that corporations that own news divisions have relationships with politicians and advertisers and other corporations. >> is is there lobbying for breaks for the company. >> they have relationships outside of the news division that it's hard to imagine don't in some ways at some time impact what the news division decides to do. whether it's explicitly said or

understood, i do think that comes into play and there are reporters, if if they speak frankly, will tell you they've seen evidence of this. when i go to investigative reporting conferences, the last few years, some feel like it's been more heavy-handed in the last couple of years than prior years. >> how about newsroom cut backs? investigative reporting almost by definition is time consuming. it's expensive. you might not come up with the story in the end. you have to deal with the lawyers. and i wonder whether or not that aspect of it -- because i can remember a time when networks routinely broke big stories that the newspapers had to chase. now not so much. is there an economic aspect as well? >> i don't think so. i don't spend a lot of money. i don't have a big staff. i work with one producer. we're extremely productive because we can do short-term things while working on long-term projects. i don't think it's necessary to spend a lot of money and use a

lot of resources to do great investigative journalism. there's some aspect to that in some cases, if all resources are removed, producers are withheld and cameras aren't assigned, you can't do a great story. >> sharyl attkisson, thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you. we'll pick this up in the next segment. is investigative reporting at the networks in decline? and is it true the conservatives won't watch stephen colbert when he takes over for david letterman? my dad has atrial fibrillation, or afib. he has the most common kind... ...it's not caused by a heart valve problem. dad, it says your afib puts you at 5 times greater risk of a stroke. that's why i take my warfarin every day. but it looks like maybe we should ask your doctor about pradaxa. in a clinical trial, pradaxa® (dabigatran etexilate mesylate)... ...was proven superior to warfarin at reducing the risk of stroke. and unlike warfarin, with no regular blood tests or dietary restrictions. hey thanks for calling my doctor.

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sharyl attkisson isn't the only high-profile kpon to the quit her network in frustration. melissa meyers and mike isikoff have left as well. is there a trend here? joining us now from new york is joe concha. when you look at network news shows, do you investigative reporting is becoming more of an afterthought or perhaps a liability? >> happy easter by the way. you know i love numbers a lot. let me give you a couple here. lisa myers nbc news, sharyl attkisson, cbs news logged 100 hours of air-time.

later, two thirds of that air time was gone. what's easier to do, howie, take a reporter, producer, technician, hire security if you're going to a dangerous part of the world, satellite uplinks and maybe come back without a story or put four or five people around the table and give opinions on news that already exists. it's a matter of profits because more corporations are in the news business. >> i'm also told it was frustration on getting investigative pieces on nbc particularly more in recent years. i don't think it can only be explained by the fact that it's more expensive. because it's controversial, as a mentioned in my interview with sharyl attkisson, there's a skirting away from this. >> if you look at michael isikoff's exit interview, it was increasingly clear they were moving in directions in which there was going to be fewer opportunities for my work, unquote. michael isikoff saw the writing on the wall. his reports simply aren't getting on the air. he had big stories that he broke.

you can't say the eye balls weren't coming. perhaps there is a headache aspect to this as well. >> let me switch to stephen colbert. you've written about him taking over david letterman's spot next year. there are some on the right who say that conservatives are just not going to watch this guy on cbs. one of those, bill o'reilly. >> he's more than a comedian. he's a mouthpiece for the far left. it would be hard to fathom 40% of americans who describe themselves as conservative will watch colbert. that's a lot of folks to lose from the john. >> now, isn't colbert on comedy central playing a conservative bombastic buffoon? >> he is. when he goes to cbs, though, that character will be retired. i don't know what cbs thinks they're buying here. they're getting a stephen colbert, howie, that's hosted zero late-night talk shows during his career.

and he's playing from behind as bill o'really said. i'm not saying 40% of the country will tune him out based on principle. even if he loses 10% of people who say he's a liberal, that could be the difference between first place and third place in the late night talk show wars, particularly when your opponents are fallen and kimmel, two guys who play apolitical. it broadens their audience and guest list as well. colbert will have to move to the center, so to speak, if he wants a bigger audience. >> i have to point out, letterman doesn't hide his left of center views. >> and he's in third place. now this news, cnn teaming up with -- to produce 15-second videos, news videos for people to download and so forth. let's take a look at one from nbc.

i guess i should give you a 15-second answer. is this the future? >> seven in ten young adults between 18 and 29 get their news on their phones. digitally. all right? the problem is you're fighting for screen place there. i don't know if you've been to a restaurant with 18 to 29-year-olds, basically they're on their phones, texting during dinner, getting the important e-mail or god forbid they're taking a phone call. you need 15 seconds before that next e-mail or text message comes in. you're fighting for space there on those phones. this is the future, howie. >> got to go, as you say. i prefer 30 seconds myself. coming up, the x-rated tweet from u.s. airways in response to an angry customer. how come nobody has been fired for that? [ dennis ] it's always the same dilemma -- who gets the allstate safe driving bonus check. rock beats scissors! [ chuckles ]

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time now for our digital download. when a customer complained about the service at u.s. airways she got back the most offensive tweet ever sent by a major company or pretty much any company. >> offensive doesn't even begin to describe it. not safe for work doesn't begin to describe it. the twitter posted a featu pornographic picture of a woman. >> how stupid do they think we are? >> yes, it was a mistake. it hurts their brand, and it is just showing that they don't get social media. you can't go that quickly on social media that you allow something like this to be tweeted. >> because some staff member was ticked off at the complaint and thought this would be funny or

amusing? >> i don't think so. the problem with social media and tweeting is that there's no editing, right? nobody -- a company editor isn't standing over your shoulder, wait, let me double check that. it has to go so quickly, and you want to stay in that conversation that big mistakes like this are made. >> airlines are increasingly use twitter to deal with customers who get flights delayed or cancelled or rebooked. this is flipping the bird at an angry customer. i think the employee should be fired. >> kenneth cole made mistakes like this, war in syria and kenneth cole -- the company tweeted boots on the ground, what about heels and loafers, that was dump. happens all the time as you're trying to stay current. >> what about some of the bomb threats? >> very troubling. have you a 14-year-old girl who claims to be from al qaeda saying that she -- that there is a bomb on board, and the airline tweets right back saying we take these threats very seriously. we're going to the fbi, and we are getting your i.p. address,

and all of a sudden there's this -- she just has a meltdown and says wait, wait, i'm just a 14-year-old girl from, you know, some place else. not from afghanistan. and i didn't do it and please don't hurt me but they did arrest her. >> american airlines did the right thing. as stupid as that was, a little troubled about arresting a 14-year-old girl but what really got me was the explosion of copycat tweets. >> right. some of the copycat tweets were a bomb goes o-f in three hours, not exactly a grammar genius and ahmed said there's a bomb on the paris flight. why the airlines have to take this seriously. love to continue this discussion online because people are split about whether or not you should arrest a 14-year-old for just playing around but about bombs and planes you don't just play around. >> 14-year-olds need to wise up, one area you don't feel around. still to come, your best tweet

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a few of your top tweets on the two newspapers winning pulitzers on the sneaks from edward snowden. neither paper distinguished itself. the important story was the only reason for theaward. steve says not surprised the surest way to get a pulitzer is trash america. fellow conspirators ought not to be given prizes and mike after the slad and ed show on russian tv, i'm thinking even less about "the guardian's" role in the whole thing. >> you just interviewed bart gelman from the "washington post" who basically said, look, he's trying to raise public policy questions. he's not in the tank for him and that it came to put president obama in the hot seat who had to

answer some very questions. >> and who had to change a policy but ed snowden has become a real russian pawn. the banner headline in "the huffington post" warned supreme court crisis coming this fall, but it was only a link to a new york magazine opinion piece saying if republicans take control of the senate and if there's a high court vacancy, the gop could refuse to confirm an obama nominee even though that sounds, quote, implausible. no one was quoted this, pure speculation, hardly the stuff of screaming headlines. i'm not going to poke fun at cnn for running a breaking news banner on anniversary of the sinking of the "titanic" because who knows, maybe some people hadn't heard about it yet, but a sad development from the land of the perpetually missing airplane. mitchell cosado who spent all those hours how long he's been in a flight simulator has been fired. even though i let him be on tv he shamed us canadians and

shamed my company with the way he was dressing like he was 15 years old. not professional at all. if you go to any plane you don't see them in shorts and sandals. wait, wait. he was pushed out over plaid shirts. what a setback for cnn and the world. >> and this is in a city of toronto where the mayor is rob ford. doesn't dress like a pro, trips over fire hydrants and was caught lying about smoking crack. >> wondered how you would fit that? >> fired for wearing short sleeves, not really a plane, not really a simulator. >> why didn't they say put on a tie next time instead of just canning him. >> it is his company. he's allowed to fire him if he wants, to but i think it's pretty lame. >> more dangerous work than actually flying a work. that's it for this edition of "media buzz." i'm howard kurtz. hope you're enjoying your easter sunday. go to our facebook page and give us a like.

post our original video there and let us know what you think on twitter. we're back here next sunday at 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. eastern with the latest buzz. fox news alert, on this easter sunday. a new wave of deadly violence in eastern ukraine that is stoking tensions there even further. at least three people are now dead and several others injured after a shootout at a checkpoint that was set up by pro-russian separatists. hello, everyone, and welcome to america's new headquarters. >> thanks for joining us. you have to wonder why this is happening, eric, because this clash seems to be the first since diplomats actually reached an agreement. it happened late last week, and it was supposed to ease all of these tensions. well, now ambassador to the ukraine is casting the blame squarely on kiev. listen. >> unless the