The Truth Will Out

November 13, 2016

A little while ago your Cable Gamer suggested that CNN’s “media reporter,” Brian Stelter, was not a media reporter at all, but a crypto-opinionator posing as an unbiased journalist. Our suggestion was to take a look at his twitter feed. Sometimes twitter is like truth serum, as journalists’ personal opinions come tumbling out.

Lately Mr. Stelter’s twitter feed has been so lopsided (toward the left, of course) it could have come from Brian Fallon. And when a reporter’s spontaneous remarks so obviously betray his partisanship, it’s going to come out on the air too. Which brings us to this morning’s Reliable Sources. It was one of those three-against-one segments (the sort of thing usually restricted to opinion programming, which CNN insists they don’t do). And Mollie Hemingway was doing her best to battle two left-of-center pundits (three, if you count the host). When she said people don’t trust the media, Stelter immediately jumped in:

BRIAN STELTER: You said people don’t trust the media. I would say some people do not. There’s a divide in this country and it mirrors the electoral divide. This was a 50-50 election.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: No, liberals do definitely trust the media and why shouldn’t they? They get everything they want to hear from liberals.

That was a sharp comeback but there was more to come:

HEMINGWAY: Just because we may like President Obama, we might forget he spent much of his presidency attacking FOX News. Bill Clinton attacked right wing media —

STELTER: He did not spend much of his presidency attacking FOX News. He occasionally pointed out what he believed was unfair coverage from FOX.

There it is. Stelter’s been tweeting up a storm about how awful it is when Trump makes fun of journalists or doesn’t let them ride in his plane, but his instinctual reflexes will not allow a Democratic President to be criticized. So not only does he immediately jump to defend Obama, he preposterously minimizes what the administration has done:

• Used the Espionage Act to label Fox News reporter a criminal co-conspirator in a court filing.
• Used that filing to snoop on his telephone calls and those of his parents.
• Excluded Fox News from high-profile round robin guests.
• Held State Department press briefings that excluded Fox News.
• Edited Fox News reporter’s question from government video.

Despite all that and more, CNN’s unbiased “media reporter” dismisses it as Obama “occasionally pointed out what he believed was unfair coverage.”  David Brock couldn’t have spun it better. Ms. Hemingway saw right through that and called out Brian Stelter for his obvious partisanship:

HEMINGWAY: OK. I guess what maybe you need to realize is that for a lot of people who don’t share your political opinions, that’s what it feels like. What you’re going through right now is what it felt like for the last eight years.

Ouch. Stelter didn’t even try to deny it. In fact Newsbusters makes a good case that Mr. Stelter’s earlier 50-50 interjection also minimized and misstated facts, further exposing his liberal perspective:

Stelter didn’t buy it, saying only “some” did because the popular vote was almost 50-50. He simply ignored a September Gallup poll showing that two thirds of Americas distrust the media. Two thirds is not “SOME,” it’s MOST.

Brian Stelter keeps shoehorning himself into more and more segments that bear only tangentially, if at all, on media issues. This afternoon, when the Trump camp made some personnel announcements, up pops Stelter arguing with a Republican about the evils of the “alt-right.” That doesn’t make sense for a media reporter. But it would be all in a day’s work for a far-left opinionator who just can’t bring himself to come out.

Written by Sydney Bloom Posted in CNN Tagged with Stelter