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How long can you host a cable TV show that reports on and criticizes the media while being the example par excellence of media bias yourself?
The answer, it turns out, is nine years.
On Thursday, it was revealed that Brian Stelter, the host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, has been sacked. It’s part of a shakeup at CNN under the new ownership of Warner Bros. Discovery. The network’s new CEO, Chris Licht, claims he is trying to move the network toward straight news and away from its reputation as a left-wing opinion outlet, under which it has suffered spiraling viewership. In July, CNN averaged 731,000 viewers in primetime, much lower than Fox News’ 2.1 million and MSNBC’s 1.3 million. Licht’s plans are part of a bid to win back the moderate viewers the network has lost.
Stelter’s show contributed to CNN’s low ratings. On Sunday, the day his show has been aired, he had 693,000 viewers. That made Reliable Sources the 28th-most-watched cable show that day and placed it behind all of Fox News’ daytime lineup.
The president of News Cycle Media, Jon Nicosia, reported in June that an anonymous source affiliated with Warner Bros. Discovery told him that Stelter is “everything that reminds the new owners of the Zucker era they desperately want to get past.” Jeff Zucker was the CEO of CNN from 2013 until February, when he left CNN ostensibly over his failure to disclose an affair with a married supervisee. Zucker’s legacy is a CNN that considers President Donald Trump and the Right to be public enemies No. 1 and 2, protects Democratic politicians from scrutiny, and promotes radical progressivism. Stelter was a strong ally and close friend of Zucker during his tenure.
The anonymous source told Nicosia that CNN’s new managers believed Stelter was leading CNN staffers in pushing back against the new management’s plans to try to moderate CNN’s far-leftism. “Management is confident,” the source said, “Stelter is the one sharing the internal pushback to fellow media reporters while simultaneously stirring discontent within the ranks.”
The entire staff of Reliable Sources has been fired along with Stelter. CNN’s new management perhaps believes Stelter’s staffers share his resistance to making CNN less biased and thus see them as an impairment to its efforts to repair the network’s dismal ratings.
What’s clear is that CNN’s leaders have determined that the public has rejected Stelter as a reliable source for media coverage. They’ve realized that Stelter is viewed as an activist defender of a left-leaning press and the symbol of CNN’s bias — and that prevents CNN from appealing to viewers of all political persuasions.
