The Biggest Indictment of Brian Stelter? His Departure Does Not Leave a Void – Opinion

The ultra-biased “media analyst” Brian Stelter is forced out, and tellingly, nobody asks who will fill his position.

It’s really to the point that at CNN headquarters they should erect a construction fence and commit to a wholesale razing. The network’s CEO, Jeff Zucker, has left the company, along with its highest-rated host, Chris Cuomo. It also suffered numerous cases of pedophilia from show producers and saw its ratings continue to fall as cable news grew or stabilized. 

Then there was the explode-on-the-launchpad fiasco of the CNN+ rollout, a streaming venture costing hundreds of millions that didn’t even last a month.

The news is that Brian Stelter has left the network. His Sunday news show about the news will continue. Reliable sources After 30 years of being on air, the station will cease to exist. With the departure of Zucker, Stelter’s fortunes were really a case of “Not if, but when.” The new management had announced it was looking to revamp its operations and bring a more balanced approach to its coverage. John Zaslav was an executive in media and a member the new board of directors at WarnersDiscovery.

“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.”

That outright admission that CNN was a biased source of slanted news was the primary threat to Stelter’s future. His was the kind of myopic coverage one comes to expect from news outlets; to have him positioned as the network’s self-professed media guru only heightened the appearance of that bias. 

One of Brian’s recent monologues had him impugning the character of some conservative news outlets by suggesting they were too focused with their news content – “Is it produced by reporters, or by repeaters?” Both projection and pithy. Stelter is funny enough to make fun of the other journalists’ focus when he was obsessed with Fox News. Boy Wonder Oliver Darcy his ward was also consumed with Fox news and all the characters. 

It was not an isolated instance of hypocrisy. The Chinese authorities shut down the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily last July for calling it an “opposition threat publication”. Stelter reported on the incident and condemned it as an attack on journalistic integrity. While Stelter took the correct position, Boy Wonder Oliver Darcy and his ward were lobbying for conservative news outlets to be removed from satellite and cable providers’ channel lists. It was done in the interests of fighting misinformation and conserving democracy.

Stelter’s foibles were legion. He frequently took issue with Donald Trump’s typos, then in one segment where he was tabulating them his onscreen graphics dubbed those “misspelling errors.” Brian would talk about how these instances showed if you cannot get the small things correct then the big things are even worse. But the man who claimed he proofread his onscreen graphics was actually a programmer saw it. incapable at times of even spelling the show’s name correctly.

However, these corrections are equal to malaprops. Stelter’s larger issue was with his selective corrections of the press. While his job was to monitor and critique the media, he used a double standard. FoxNews was rife for any and all criticisms, and Brian & Darcy would level charges on an almost quotidian basis. But when the other outlets did the same thing or worse, they often received a pass.

The false Rolling Story that alleged unvaccinated COVID patients were overflowing Oklahoma’s ERs was repeated by many media outlets, but it didn’t make the cut. Stelter actually supported the story about border agents whipping migrants that was falsely reported. He said that outlets were just trying to catch up to social media reports – which makes no sense since he always impugned them as not practicing journalism – and then congratulated the news sources making corrections for ultimately getting the story correct. Fox’s correction was taken as proof they don’t follow the exact same editorial standards.

I even had a first-hand account with Stelter’s unique brand of delusion last summer. After weeks or months of him dismissing the importance of ratings – trying to claim they move in cycles and that pointing out small metrics is inaccurate – suddenly one day Brian was cheering that his show hit a notable number in the demo…on one broadcast.

The contradiction I found was interesting. It turned out that Brian had bragging rights because the network aired the live coverage of the Richard Branson space launch, which was delayed by the weather. This happened during my time slot. Stelter claimed he had high ratings due to not having his regular programming. Brian was offended by my observation and sent me a message.

His claim that I was exposing ignorance about how television operates was based on his show’s logo shown on screen and that he hosted the launch for the entire hour, resulting in the ratings being credited to his show. Sure, Brian – yet my pointing out the fact that you achieved these ratings highs by NOT doing a conventional episode of Reliable sourcesHe was completely overlooked. “You still have a chance,” was essentially his argument.

This was on brand for Brian’s typical deluded approach to news items. In March, when the New York Times turned heads by admitting to the validity of Hunter Biden’s laptop, it was recognized across the media landscape – and was never even alluded to on Brian’s program. When CNN+ crashed on the launchpad after a $300 million investment Stelter tried to insist it was too early to state this was to be judged as a “failure”.

It really came to be a case where Brian’s body of work covering the media was done to appeal only to those in the media. He was creating a protective shield for journalists and not intended to be a light source for the public. Because his output was almost entirely contentless, it will be difficult to feel his absence.

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