CNN’s resident senior media hall monitor Brian Stelter is simultaneously his network’s most out-front cheerleader and their own worst enemy.
He’s praised CNN’s coverage of the Hunter Biden story yet at the same time has expressed agitation that the story is supposedly getting too much coverage at rival network Fox News.
Stelter also threw his sidekick Oliver Darcy under the bus earlier this month over a dust-up involving Fox News’ Bret Baier after favorably quoting Darcy’s comments on Baier extensively in a newsletter put out that same week.
The self-styled media expert also frequently complains about Fox News not obsessing over COVID case numbers in their programming (as though they don’t care about the pandemic) even though CNN has been known to drop their pretense of caring about COVID victims a time or two in their “reporting” via stories that are either good news for Democrats or which somehow portray Joe Biden in the most flattering of lights. Here’s a prime example of Stelter getting fauxfended recently over Fox News not providing minute by minute coverage of the pandemic:
To put it simply: Fox News producers believe that their viewers do not want to hear about depressing pandemic deaths. They believe pandemic news doesn't "rate." They believe that they need to focus on culture war battles, anti-Democrat narratives, and pro-Trump stories. The end.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 11, 2020
Fast forward to today when Stelter tweeted out a screengrab of the electors casting their votes in the presidential election. He was quick to point out what he called “the difference” between his network and others like Fox News and MSNBC. “CNN is going from state capital to capital, showing electors vote, democracy in action — while the others are doing regular programming,” he tweeted, as though CNN was performing a public service by turning into a cable news version of C-SPAN:
The difference between CNN and the other cable news nets is really striking today — CNN is going from state capital to capital, showing electors vote, democracy in action — while the others are doing regular programming pic.twitter.com/MoykxN9SE2
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 14, 2020
The big problem with Stelter’s back-patting is that in both it and the story, gone was CNN’s COVID case and death count tracker, which they’ve left on their screens virtually non-stop over the last several months. Not only that, but it was like suddenly news of a vaccine that could potentially help America get back to normal was not a priority to report on for CNN, which has used the coronavirus as a battering ram against Trump since the pandemic started.
A number of Twitter users called him out for his double standards, including media watcher RoadMN and Newsbusters media monitors Tim Graham and Curtis Houck:
Here @BrianStelter is showing that their love for Biden takes precedence of COVID.
Notice they removed COVID tracker & are giving more air time to this than 1st vaccines, etc.
Of course they are also adding their snarky left-wing opinion in their “democracy in action” coverage. https://t.co/tZvpWa94jf
— RoadMN (@RoadMN) December 14, 2020
Houck then correctly pointed out that the vaccines, which CNN said for months we would not see until middle of next year, were a big story and worthy of a significant amount of coverage and that it was beneath CNN to try and shame other networks into covering what CNN was at that moment:
You guys are so embarrassingly in love with yourself it’s pathetic. Meanwhile, the vaccines that CNN so desperately didn’t want to happen on Trump’s watch are being distributed and you’re dismissing hefty coverage of that as a distraction? How repugnant.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 14, 2020
Stelter then pretended to be outraged, pointing out that CNN had at times given the vaccine news coverage today:
What are you talking about? CNN has been showing the vaccinations all day long
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 14, 2020
Houck then schooled Stelter by alerting him that it was okay if news networks didn’t all cover the same story at the same time:
You’re criticizing your opponents for not behaving exactly like CNN, which is your network’s M.O. Maybe it’s *okay* that, for example, Fox and MSNBC are doing more on vaccine distribution today. Nothing wrong with walking and chewing gum at the same time. https://t.co/jp6E4Vgq5s
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 14, 2020
Predictably, Stelter didn’t like having his words thrown back at him:
I didn’t criticize or say it wasn’t okay. I said the difference is striking, and you freaked out.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 14, 2020
Graham pushed back with the perfect translation for Stelter’s tweet. Houck swooped in later for the alley oop:
“I didn’t say they were wrong, I said we championing democracy, and the others were boring”
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 14, 2020
We all know how this works. You share someone’s take with “this” or “>>” to echo what you yourself think or you use understated language to give yourself room to throw your hands up in faux befuddlement when someone calls out your liberal partisanship
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 14, 2020
Bingo. That is classic Stelter right down to the core.
This Twitter user put it all in perspective:
The difference between CNN and other cable news nets is really striking today – Other cable news nets are going capital to capital, showing vaccines distributed and administered, a historic day in medicine, some would say a miracle, hope for ALL Americans
— Erica Kaiser (@EricaKaiser_) December 14, 2020
Memo to Brian Stelter: If you don’t like being hoist by your own petard, it might be a good idea going forward if you stop trying to hold other networks to a standard CNN doesn’t even hold itself to. Your rules and all. Just sayin’…
Join the conversation as a VIP Member