The Housecleaning At CNN Has Begun, And Brian Stelter Is On The Street
This has been bandied about for a while, ever since the Discovery/Warner merger was completed. At the time there was a good deal of discussion along the lines that CNN would be abandoning all or part of its lineup of ruling class sycophants and Democrat media drones on air and attempting to return to more of a straight-news profile.
But that’s an aircraft carrier it takes a while to turn around. You can’t just run everybody off at a cable news network all at once. You’ve got to do it gradually – because otherwise, filling airtime becomes difficult. Not to mention the fact that once the word is out that you’re about to do a housecleaning it’s like rats leaving a sinking ship – anybody who can get another job will grab one and what you’re left with is the people who need firing the most.
Something you can fix with time, obviously, but then there’s the damage to the network’s brand when it becomes little better than a cable-access channel.
CNN is little better than a cable-access channel ratings-wise. And Brian Stelter’s “Reliable Sources” show got, essentially, bad cable-access channel viewership.
One wonders why, when the show was doing so well as a matter of credibility…
So not counting Chris “Fredo” Cuomo, who essentially fired himself earlier this year, Stelter was the next head to roll in what will be a methodical purge of the no-talents at CNN.
CNN is canceling its Sunday media affairs show Reliable Sources, and host Brian Stelter is departing the network, Stelter tells NPR.
In a statement to NPR, Stelter says he’s grateful for the show and his team’s examination of “the media, truth and the stories that shape our world.”
“It was a rare privilege to lead a weekly show focused on the press at a time when it has never been more consequential,” Stelter said, promising to say more on Sunday’s show — its final episode.
Stelter got his start blogging about cable news as a student and went on to become a media reporter for The New York Times. Reliable Sources is the longest-running show on CNN; Stelter has hosted it for the past nine years and celebrated the show’s 30th anniversary in March.
CNN chief Chris Licht informed Stelter of the decision yesterday. Licht has been making cuts throughout the network since taking the helm as part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s takeover of the old Time Warner company.
The network pulled the plug on its standalone digital platform, CNN+, for which it had hired former NPR host Audie Cornish and former Fox News host Chris Wallace, before it had been launched. (Both stars have stayed on at CNN.)
Stelter, who often touted the show’s ratings on Twitter, was among those CNN hosts targeted for frequent criticism from conservatives for his coverage of the media during the Trump years.
They’re calling him the most prominent media reporter in America, which is (1) patently false, as both Howie Kurtz and Joe Concha are are better at that trade, and (2) indicative of just what American legacy media has become in that a blatant sycophant and talentless drone like Stelter could earn such acclaim by simply parroting the daily approved narrative.
But today’s events indicate this just doesn’t fly anymore.
Discovery is a smaller company than AT&T was. That means Discovery needs its cable properties to turn profits. AT&T didn’t really care; CNN was a loss leader for them and carrying the Brian Stelters of the world held other benefits – like friendly treatment from Democrat pols who got regular belly-rubs from CNN’s on-air programs whether anyone was watching or not.
Sooner or later, reality intervenes. It intervened with Stelter today. CNN’s other partisan Democrat drones are likely to see similar interventions in the coming weeks. Whether the great purge afoot there will restore some of CNN’s lost credibility is a separate question.
