Dylan Byers Joins Fareed Zakaria at CNN
In case you didn’t notice, you must not have been following “social media.” The Cable Gamer admits she’s just getting the hang of twitter, but has seen enough to know when the hype machine is up and running:
Mr. Byers is certainly an apt hire for Reliable Sources, since he is as reliable a voice for the media criticism establishment as anyone. And now he apparently falls under the same protection umbrella that has spared Anderson Cooper, Carol Costello, Fareed Zakaria, and even Brian Stelter himself from the scrutiny applied to people not employees of CNN.
It comes at an opportune time for Byers, who was recently embroiled in charges of journalistic pilfering. This is not something ace Cable Gamer Joe Concha takes lightly:
“Dylan Byers is grossly irresponsible and should not be considered a serious media writer,” he told The Mirror Thursday night. “The bottom line is Mike Allen and Byers and Politico for that matter should be ashamed for stealing an exclusive that they know came from Mediaite first…as in eight hours and a week earlier first.
“Byers in particular has a horrible reputation in this industry as somebody who lifts and steals and credits himself with the work that others have done. The fact that I used to actually admire his work is an embarrassment. He deserves no respect and anyone who thinks otherwise needs to rethink his or her evaluation of his so-called work.
“And it’s not about me or Mediaite, but simply fairness and accuracy. Media is less trusted than ever before, and to see ego and self-importance trump right and wrong is both sad and disappointing.”
Do you remember Reliable Sources coverage of this controversy? Neither does the Cable Gamer, and there’s no mention of it in the Reliable transcripts for two weeks following Concha’s scoop. If that’s the kind of treatment Byers got before he became a CNN employee, one can only imagine the size of the kid gloves they’re going to use now:
Dylan Byers, the superbly well-sourced media reporter at Politico, is joining CNNMoney and CNN Politics…Byers is a scoop machine. When I’ve been offline for more than a few hours, the way I see what I’ve missed is by checking his Twitter feed.
The Cable Game 
I’ve always thought of the right-leaning media critic Dylan Byers as the counterweight to left leaning WaPo media critic Erik Wemple.
Given how many Republicans CNN has hired as contributors lately, I wondered if that might have played a role in hiring Mr. Byers to offset the perceived liberal bias of Brian Stelter.
But that’s just me. I’ve been wrong before.
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If Byers were a right-leaning media critic, no way would he be palling around with Stelter.
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