If one figure could be chosen to represent the total forfeiture of trust the dominant media has inflicted upon itself in recent years, freshly rehired Brian Stelter of CNN fame would fit the bill nicely. The man personifies the cozy hive that is the big-box media orbit, and its commitment to tailoring the news to serve an agenda even at the cost of professional reputation.
Stelter was among the very first newsmen to be purged by Chris Licht during his brief tenure as CNN CEO. Licht had hopes of returning CNN to more balance and less partisan shill. It goes without saying, he was doomed from the start. Brought on in February 2022, he was gone by June 2023 after employees leaked their unhappiness with him to outside media comrades.
Since then, CNN has comfortably fallen back on its progressive establishment biases. In rehiring Stelter, an easy target for critics of the network, the message could not be clearer: We don’t care how it looks, we will stake out our place alongside MSNBC on the propaganda tier of the television news dial.
He’s Been Through Tough Times
Hilariously, Stelter vowed that he had learned much in his time away from the network, and now feels more connected with the general public. How did he achieve this? By gigging at Harvard and the BBC.
“I tried on a variety of other hats: Harvard fellow, BBC talking head, magazine writer. I wrote for 20+ outlets and learned about the ups and downs of freelancing and I experienced the news more like an everyday consumer,” Stelter wrote in a Sept. 3 email to subscribers to his newsletter announcing his new role as “chief media analyst” for CNN.
Displaying a remarkable lack of self-awareness, Stelter asserted that leaving New York City for horse country also helped ground him.
“I always scoffed at people who said ‘getting fired was the best thing that’s ever happened to me’ – until, well, it happened to me,” Stelter added. “After 20+ years as a news junkie, I changed my habits and tuned out for a bit. I also changed my vantage point, moving from Manhattan to a horse farm near one of Donald Trump’s golf clubs.”
This is the world the Brian Stelters of the dominant press inhabit. Along with his dabblings at Harvard and the BBC, Stelter also took time to participate in a 2023 World Economic Forum event in Davos titled “The Clear and Present Danger of Disinformation.”
Stelter is indeed something of an expert on the subject: He promoted blatant falsehoods for years on CNN in his role as host of the network’s Reliable Sources program. Stelter tirelessly trumpeted the Russia collusion hoax during President Donald Trump’s term in office. He urged restrictions on free speech in the name of combating misinformation online.
And he did much worse than that.
Stelter “falsely claimed that the Steele dossier, which was full of unverified and unverifiable allegations against Trump, had been verified,” The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway notes. “Stelter falsely claimed that the corporate media had not reported that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.... Just weeks before Joe Biden was forced out of the presidential race by the corporate media and other Democrat operatives worried he’d lose the 2024 election, Stelter said Republican focus on Biden’s mental decline was an example of disinformation.”
And now he’s back. No man who so faithfully serves an ensconced ruling regime is left out in the cold for long.
Not-So-Independent Media
Such service is a hallmark of CNN. As Liberty Nation News documented last November, the Poynter Institute bestowed its 2023 Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism upon longtime network star Anderson Cooper during its annual Bowtie Ball fundraising gala.
Who helps fund Poynter?
In 2022, Google and YouTube gave $13.2 million to Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network to fight “misinformation.” Other donors include CNN itself. Yes, CNN funded the very same Poynter Bowtie Ball in which its leading anchor was awarded a lifetime achievement award. And CNN is not alone.
NBC News has an open working relationship with a globalist think tank bitterly opposed to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. “Anchors and correspondents from NBC News, the exclusive media partner of the 2022 Aspen Security Forum, will participate throughout the program,” the Aspen Institute crowed in touting its annual elitist gathering.
Network anchors Lester Holt and Kristen Welker were among those hosting Aspen events again in 2023. A little more than four months later, the pair “moderated” the third Republican presidential primary debate.
This is the severely compromised status quo that Brian Stelter embodies. His return to CNN will do nothing to boost the cratering ratings at a network that has long lost all of its once-substantial cachet. But it will further drive home the message that propping up the agenda of a ruling progressive establishment - and dominant media figures like Stelter are a part of that establishment - takes precedence over antiquated concerns about journalism ethics. Indeed, it’s not even a close call.
