Gersh Kuntzman

Gersh Kuntzman

Gersh Kuntzman having a drink outside Guadalajara, Mexico in 2015.
Born Gary Lawrence Kuntzman
(1965-05-19) May 19, 1965
The Bronx, New York City
Occupation Journalist and writer
Website http://gershkuntzman.homestead.com

Gersh Kuntzman (born May 19, 1965) is an American journalist. He worked for the New York Post, writing the column "MetroGnome," which ran from 1994-2004. He also had a weekly column for Newsweek online that ran from Jan. 2001-July 2005. Kuntzman authored HAIR! Mankind's Historic Quest to End Baldness and "Chrismukkah: The Official Guide to the World's Best-Loved Holiday", and is a frequent contributor to national magazines. He also co-wrote the critically acclaimed off-broadway play SUV: The Musical with songwriter Marc Dinkin, which was featured at the New York City Fringe Festival 2005. The next year he satirized the newspaper industry with another musical, "Stop the Presses."[1]

Kuntzman is often said to be notable for his coverage of the July 4 hot dog-eating contest at Coney Island,[2] which is sponsored by Nathan's.

In 2005, Kuntzman became editor of The Brooklyn Paper, a group of community newspapers covering Kings County. During his tenure, he won awards for Editor of the Year and Columnist of the Year from the Suburban Newspapers of America.[3] His editorial writing also won awards from the Independent Free Papers of America. That organization also gave The Brooklyn Paper its Vic Jose Award in 2009.[4] In that same year, The Brooklyn Paper was bought by the Community Newspaper Group, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

In 2010, CNG named him editor of four more print editions, including the Park Slope Courier. In 2011, those editions were consolidated under one name, Brooklyn Courier.

In January, 2012, Kuntzman left The Brooklyn Paper to teach journalism at the City University's graduate school of journalism.[5] As part of that course, Kuntzman also ran the Fort Greene-Clinton Hill blog for the New York Times.

Kuntzman was a frequent guest on BBC Radio 5 Live's "Up All Night New York" show with Peter Franklin, presented by Dotun Adebayo.

In 2012, Kuntzman became deputy managing editor for news at the New York Daily News, where he is now a columnist. He is currently at work on a new play, "Murder at the Food Coop," which is a satire of the Park Slope Food Coop, where Kuntzman has been a member since 1992.

Kuntzman described himself as a supporter of the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.[6]

In 2016, Kuntzman became the center of widespread attention when he wrote an article titled "Firing an AR-15 is horrifying, menacing, and very very loud." In the article, Kuntzman says that he traveled to a gun range in Philadelphia to shoot a "military-style weapon," so that he could better understand such weapons' appeals in the wake of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting. He says that "It felt to me like a bazooka - and sounded like a cannon." Kuntzman further described the experience by saying that "The recoil bruised my shoulder" and "The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick." The most controversial part of the article was when Kuntzman claimed that "The explosions - like a bomb - gave me a temporary form of PTSD."[7] Kuntzman faced widespread criticism for the article, particularly the claim that he suffered from PTSD, with some critics saying that such a claim diminished the severity of PTSD suffered by veterans.[8] Kuntzman later wrote another article further criticizing gun owners, but apologizing for the remarks about PTSD.[9]

In April 2016, Kuntzman has criticized U.S. government's drone assassination program, and has even implied that the Obama administration may be guilty of war crimes.[10] He also wanted President Obama to apologize for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.[10]

Following the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov on 19 December 2016, Kuntzman compared his murder by Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş to the assassination of Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Jewish student Herschel Grynszpan, saying "justice has been served."[11] The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman wrote on her Facebook page to Kuntzman: "you have said that the fight of the Jewish people against anti-Semitism in 1930s amounts to the terrorist ways of the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra ... Are they really the same to you?"[12]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Page Six". NY Post. Retrieved 2008-08-25.
  2. ↑ "The Greatest! Chestnut beats Kobayashi in historic playoff". The Brooklyn Paper. Retrieved 2008-08-25.
  3. ↑ "The Brooklyn Paper is ‘Newspaper of the Year’". Retrieved 31 March 2017.
  4. ↑ "We win — again! More awards for your Brooklyn Paper!". Retrieved 31 March 2017.
  5. ↑ "Hey honeys! 'King of Brooklyn' Gersh Kuntzman heads off to academe, to instruct young gumshoes". Retrieved 31 March 2017.
  6. ↑ "I voted for Hillary Clinton — and even I don’t want her to be president at this point". NY Daily News. November 23, 2016.
  7. ↑ Gersh Kuntzman. "Firing an AR-15 is horrifying, menacing, and very very loud". NY Daily News. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  8. ↑ Douglas Ernst. "Gersh Kuntzman, N.Y. Daily News writer: Firing AR-15 'gave me a temporary form of PTSD'". The Washington Times. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  9. ↑ Gersh Kuntzman. "To gun lovers, you can't even have an opinion on assault rifles - unless it's theirs. Here's the proof". NY Daily News. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  10. 1 2 "President Obama should apologize when he visits atomic bomb site in Hiroshima — and while he’s at it, he should swear off drone strikes". NY Daily News. April 14, 2016.
  11. ↑ Gersh, Kuntzman. "Assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov was not terrorism, but retribution for Vladimir Putin’s war crimes". New York Daily News. Retrieved 20 December 2016.
  12. ↑ "Kremlin demands US paper apologize for 'justifying' assassination". The Hill. December 21, 2016.
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