Reporter Carl Bernstein appeared Sunday on Brian Stelter’s “Reliable Sources” show to discuss imperatives for American journalists. “The truth is not neutral,” said Bernstein. “That doesn’t mean that we have to be fair in all we cover. We have to give acknowledgment to two sides. We have to be judicious but not judicial.”
Habitual viewers of “Reliable Sources” surely heard in Bernstein’s words echoes of the many times Stelter’s program traversed the same turf — namely, the challenges of reporting on the lies circulated by former president Donald Trump and his associates. And this would be the last echo: CNN last week axed “Reliable Sources,” the network’s longest-running show. The 36-year-old Stelter is leaving the company after helming “Reliable Sources” for nine years.
With this swift, late-summer move, CNN boss Chris Licht rid the network of some predictable Sunday programming. He also managed two less impressive feats: depriving CNN of a clearinghouse for media coverage and succumbing to propaganda from Fox News, which has been gunning for Stelter for years.
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CNN released a statement from executive Amy Entelis lauding Stelter as “an impeccable broadcaster.” So why cancel his program?
Follow this authorErik Wemple's opinionsThe demise of “Reliable Sources” is among the biggest steps by Licht, who assumed control of the news giant after AT&T transferred control to Warner Bros. Discovery. Rumblings earlier this summer from the WB Discovery executive suite have emphasized the need for CNN to steer a middle course in covering politics — a network where Democrats and Republicans alike can get a fair hearing. “I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” said John Malone, a powerful board member of Warner Bros. Discovery, in a CNBC interview last year.
Malone told the New York Times that he wasn’t involved in the cancellation of “Reliable Sources,” though he said that he wants CNN to be more “centrist.”
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Call it CNN’s Project Centrism if you like — an initiative in which Stelter will play no part. He apparently disqualified himself during the Trump years, when business was very good for “Reliable Sources.” There was never a shortage of content in those days, whether it be a Trump attack on the media, a series of lies from the White House or yet another instance where Fox News traded personnel with the Trump White House. Each Sunday, Stelter would go on air to inventory the outrages and discuss how the American news media should best cover them.
His words in those segments invariably sounded like Trump condemnations because the truth, to borrow Bernstein’s phrasing, isn’t neutral. After the White House in November 2018, for instance, suspended the credentials of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, Stelter riffed, “This is about the White House trying to control news coverage by blacklisting certain reporters. Ultimately, it’s about freedom of the press. The question now is, whose credentials could be revoked next?”
What else was he going to say? Was that not sufficiently centrist for CNN’s new boss?
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Fox News hosts frequently took potshots at Stelter for his focus — or obsession, in the opinion of his critics — on their tight relationships with Trump. The idea here was to marshal Fox News’s powerful airwaves to define the CNN media correspondent for the network’s own purposes. Sean Hannity in December 2020 called Stelter a “full-time Fox News psycho stalker hall monitor … Humpty Dumpty.” Tucker Carlson in March 2019 referred to him as a “eunuch.” Greg Gutfeld turned him into a punch line, commonly one that turned on fat-shaming. “Polling for Joe [Biden] is sinking faster than Brian Stelter in a hot-air balloon,” said Gutfeld in June.
To judge from Gutfeld’s commentary on Thursday, Stelter’s ouster marked a win for the Fox News commentator/humorist: “First of all, we have some sad news for this show. Brian Stelter is leaving CNN. I know. Yes. Apparently he wants to spend more time with his food. I kid,” said Gutfeld on his 11 p.m. show.
Such gloating is what happens when you cave to the Fox News crowd.
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In killing “Reliable Sources,” Licht is also silencing an in-house critic, if past CNN scandals are any indication. Though Stelter did poor work in covering former CNN host Chris Cuomo’s ethical lapse in helping his brother, then-New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, navigate a sexual harassment crisis, he has a history of reporting on his own workplace. In 2014, Stelter devoted a segment of his show to examining plagiarism accusations against colleague Fareed Zakaria. (Zakaria is also a Post columnist. The paper found “problematic” sourcing in five pieces but determined that it fell short of plagiarism.) In 2016, he devoted nine minutes of airtime to criticism of CNN for having hired former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a contributor. In 2019, he covered CNN’s hiring of a former spokeswoman for Jeff Sessions as a CNN political editor.
So as Licht prepares to announce more programming and personnel actions, he has one less prying reporter to worry about. The Erik Wemple blog asked Licht to explain the reasoning for the move against Stelter’s show and is awaiting an answer.
CNN, meantime, has announced that it will keep Oliver Darcy, a workhorse media reporter, as the author of the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Last Thursday, Darcy penned a description of the “reimagined” version of the product: “The newsletter will tackle trust and all who influence it, from news anchors to podcast hosts to popular internet personalities,” wrote Darcy (boldface in original). “It will examine broadcast and cable news, newspapers and digital news sites, social media companies, streaming services, and all the platforms that make up our modern information economy.”
Huh. Sounds a lot like the “Reliable Sources” newsletter we’ve been reading for years, the one fueled by contributions from “an impeccable broadcaster.”
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