Report: House Cleaning at CNN; “Reliable Sources” Host Brian Stelter May Be On His Way Out
Edited by: TJVNews.com
On Wednesday, News Cycle Media President Jon Nicosia took to Twitter to announce that CNN’s Brian Stelter “is ‘down to weeks if not days’ left at CNN. According to Nicosia, Stelter is ‘everything that reminds the new owners of the Zucker era they desperately want to get past.'”
Nicosia claimed the info came from an anonymous source who also said “management is confident Stelter is the one sharing the internal pushback to fellow media reporters while simultaneously stirring discontent within the ranks.”
Fox News reported that Stelter, who is the host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” had his lowest-rated episode since September 2019 on Sunday when only 580,000 viewers tuned into the struggling program.
“Reliable Sources” also struggled in the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults age 25-54, averaging only 73,000 viewers from the critical category. Fox News also reported that Stelter’s program shed 13% of the total audience who tuned into the show that precedes it, “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” and lost 25% of Zakaria’s viewers among the demo. It was Stelter’s smallest audience since Sept. 15, 2019.
Stelter’s media affairs program turned a blind eye to the jarring lack of coverage the press gave to the aborted assassination attempt of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, according to the Fox News report. The New York Times, ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN were all criticized by conservatives for downplaying or ignoring the alarming incident, but Stelter paid the story no heed.
Fox News also reported that last week, Stelter and CNN colleague Jim Acosta were singled out as the “face of the network’s liberal shift” in the eyes of conservatives. Recently appointed CNN chairman and CEO Chris Licht previously informed staffers he would “double down on what’s working well and quickly eliminate what’s not,” and there have since been lingering questions about what programs or personalities would be eliminated.
Newsmax reported that Licht reportedly told company management during a Tuesday conference call that staff should avoid using the Democratic Party’s “the Big Lie” term, according to Mediaite.
The phrase has been used frequently by Democrats in reference to former President Donald Trump’s claims about voter fraud during the 2020 election.
A source informed the outlet on Wednesday that Licht believes using the term weakens people’s views of the network’s objectivity and instead recommended using “Trump election lie” or “election lies” in banners and graphics, as was reported by Newsmax.
The term is notably a favorite of Stelter, who, as recently as March, invoked “the Big Lie” amid the network’s coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as was reported by Newsmax.
“Concerns of the vulnerability of the U.S. political system have taken a backseat to daily coverage of the war in Ukraine,” Stelter said in a March 27 monologue. “But the domestic dangers are still clear. Reporters keep exposing evidence of Donald Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ and the powerful people who advanced it.”
“The Big Lie” has seen renewed interest as the one-sided hearings of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6th Capitol riot continue. Newsmax reported that chair of the panel, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., invoked the idea in his opening remarks for Monday’s hearing.
