The Daily Beast Fires Howard Kurtz After Column On Gay NBA Player

The Daily Beast has fired star media reporter Howard Kurtz, after being forced to retract a recent Kurtz column that focused on the "coming out" of NBA player Jason Collins.

The news was first broke by Politico media reporter Dylan Byers and later confirmed by editor in chief Tina Brown.

In a column Kurtz wrote on Wednesday, he argued that Collins has tried to hide a previous engagement to a woman. But in his coming out column for Sports Illustrated, Collins addressed the issue squarely.

"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."

That mistake and several other factual errors convinced The Daily Beast to retract the column and post a corrective article:

"The Daily Beast sincerely regrets Kurtz’s error—and any implication that Collins attempted to hide or obscure the engagement."

Along with his work for The Daily Beast, Kurtz also hosts the media roundtable "Reliable Sources" on CNN and appears in videos for the site and YouTube channel Daily Download.

In a video posted on Wednesday, Kurtz repeated his mistake and offered up what appears to be an odd attempt at humor:

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 plotline 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."