I wrote this morning about the spicy back and forth exchange between CNN’s junior media hall monitor Oliver Darcy and Fox News anchor Bret Baier that was initiated by Darcy Wednesday after Baier reported on election fraud allegations President Trump made in a video posted to Facebook.
To briefly recap, Darcy twice falsely accused Baier of not bothering to “fact check” or “provide context” for the claims Trump made. Baier refuted him twice, but in the second of his two responses, Baier also mic-dropped him by pointing out the things his program did that programs on CNN do not: “It’s called balance. You should try it.” It was the second time in recent weeks that Baier took him to the woodshed without so much as breaking a sweat.
CNN’s senior media hall monitor Brian Stelter made a point of quoting Darcy extensively on the Baier dust-up in the media newsletter they take turns writing:
It's stating the obvious, but CNN's @BrianStelter and @OliverDarcy are detestable individuals. For them, there's no diversity allowed in news presentation. It's their way or they'll try to shut you down.@BretBaier is both a better journalist and man than they will ever be. pic.twitter.com/Y96G7AuJRI
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 3, 2020
Considering Stelter and Darcy usually don’t quote journalists and colleagues in their newsletter who they disagree with, it was widely assumed that Stelter agreed with Darcy since he made sure to feature Darcy’s “dereliction of duty” accusation against Baier in the letter.
After the newsletter went out, Darcy and Stelter both took a lot of grief on Twitter for their more-obnoxious-than-normal behavior – especially considering that they concern-trolled Baier the night before his 13-year-old son was scheduled to have his 4th open-heart surgery. Greta Van Susteren, who anchored Fox News and CNN programs at various points in her career, was one of the more high-profile media figures to criticize them:
Maybe @brianstelter could ‘give it a rest’ and quit playing the cable war game of taking slaps at competitors while @BretBaier is in the hospital today w/ his son getting his 4th open heart surgery? Cable people spend way too much time talking about each other pic.twitter.com/S1roGtL4oN
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) December 3, 2020
It was at this point when the most unintentionally hilarious moment of the day happened. Stelter kinda sorta threw Darcy under the bus by way of invoking the lame “I didn’t say it, he did!” defense:
the first two words in that paragraph are "Darcy continues," followed by a colon and quote marks, which clearly means the words were written by @oliverdarcy. i untagged Baier from this reply out of respect.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 3, 2020
Van Susteren didn’t buy it – nor did anyone else familiar with the childish antics of CNN’s Dynamic Duo of Dum Dums:
Oh stop ! You put this in your newsletter! https://t.co/08jJjmJjVj
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) December 3, 2020
Your newsletter criticized @BretBaier for what Trump said via clips and yet you exonerate yourself by tweeting that Darcy said this and you didn’t when you reported it in your newsletter? https://t.co/08jJjmJjVj
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) December 3, 2020
Stelter had already run away from the argument at that point, presumably because he was busy pulling his buddy out from the bus he’d just kicked him under, and begging him for forgiveness. 😉
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