WASHINGTON, May 5 (UPI) -- U.S. journalist Howard Kurtz said Sunday he made "a big mistake" in his erroneous report that NBA star Jason Collins didn't disclose his engagement to a woman.
Collins became the first active male professional athlete in a major North American team sport to reveal he is gay Monday in an op-ed piece in Sports Illustrated.
After reading the piece, Kurtz incorrectly accused Collins of leaving out the fact that he was at one point engaged to former girlfriend Carolyn Moos. But Collins included that detail in his op-ed piece.
Kurtz took to his own CNN show "Reliable Sources" Sunday to issue a full-fledged apologize for his error, Politico reported.
"This show has always been about turning a critical lens on the media," Kurtz said in the opening of his show. "This time the media mistake was mine -- a big mistake, more than one in fact."
"On Monday I read the 'Sports Illustrated' article by Jason Collins, the first pro male-team athlete to come out publicly as gay. I read it too fast and carelessly missed that Jason Collins said he was engaged previously to a woman and then wrote and commented that he was wrong to keep that from readers when, in fact, I was the one that was wrong," he said.
"My logic between what happened between Jason Collins and his former fiance and what was and wasn't disclosed -- in hindsight, well, I was wrong to even raise that and showed a lack of sensitivity to the issue. Also, I didn't give him a chance to respond to my account before I wrote it and in addition my first correction to the story was not as complete and full as it should have been," Kurtz added.
Since his erroneous report first aired, Kurtz has been fired from his role as The Daily Beast's Washington bureau chief. Kurtz said on BuzzFeed his departure had been "in the works for some time."
