RIP Reliable Sources—and Corporate Media’s Willingness to Examine Itself

When CNN was bought out by media conglomerate Discovery (now Warner Bros. Discovery), FAIR (2/17/22) and others highlighted the worrisome potential influence of Discovery‘s leading individual shareholder, libertarian billionaire and Fox News fan John Malone. Since then, CNN has also come under the direction of a new president, Chris Licht, who got his start in national news as Joe Scarborough’s executive producer. Last week’s ouster of longtime media reporter Brian Stelter—and the cancellation of the show he hosted, Reliable Sources—offers the first evidence of a shift away from critical journalism at CNN, at a critical time.

Washington Post media analyst Eric Wemple (8/23/22) said that by firing Brian Stelter, CNN was “succumbing to propaganda from Fox News, which has been gunning for Stelter for years.”

Reliable Sources, on air for over 30 years, wasn’t axed because of lackluster ratings. While CNN‘s audience has shrunk since Trump left office, Reliable Sources was far from the network’s weakest link; CNN‘s highest-rated Sunday show, it recently outperformed even CNN‘s weekday primetime programming (Mediaite, 7/2/22). Instead, many observers pointed to both Malone and Licht’s “centrist”-leaning desires, and Stelter’s willingness to criticize both men, as probable factors in his firing.

Stelter, who had hosted Reliable Sources for the past nine years, was hardly a progressive (e.g., The Nation, 9/3/20; Yahoo News, 8/8/21). But he was a regular critic of Fox News‘ cozy relationship with both Donald Trump and disinformation. And both Malone and Licht have publicly expressed interest in moving CNN toward a style of news that doesn’t involve butting heads with Fox or Republicans.

‘Actual journalism’ 

Malone told CNBC (11/18/21) in November: “I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.” In case anyone was confused about what “actual journalists” are, Malone clarified: “Fox News, in my opinion, has followed an interesting trajectory of trying to have news news, I mean some actual journalism, embedded in a program schedule of all opinions.”

Stelter’s firing was foreshadowed back in June, when the New York Post (6/7/22) reported that new CNN boss Chris Licht was gunning for hosts who couldn’t “adjust to a less partisan tone and strategy.”

In April, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said he wanted to distinguish CNN from cable news “advocacy networks” (Wall Street Journal, 4/14/22). In June, Licht asked staff not to use the term “big lie” when talking about Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen; one CNN “insider” told Mediaite (6/15/22) they suspected Malone’s influence.

In a June article on changes Licht was making at the network, the New York Times‘ Michael Grynbaum and John Koblin (6/5/22) reported that the network was making “a redoubled effort to reach viewers of all stripes.” By “of all stripes,” Grynbaum and Koblin appeared to mean “Republican”; no efforts to attract progressives were noted, while they did report that Licht told producers and journalists recently that “he wanted to book more Republicans and conservatives on political shows to offer a wider range of viewpoints.”

AP‘s David Bauder (8/18/22) reported that Licht “has made it known internally that he’s not interested in conflict between CNN and Fox News on the network.” Notably, Bauder wrote that while anchor Brianna Keilar “had also attracted attention for detailed critical pieces on Fox…they have stopped since Licht took over.”

‘Represents [Malone’s] thinking’

John Malone told the New York Times (8/18/22) that he had “nothing to do with” Stelter’s cancellation—other than it being the kind of ideological purge that said he wanted when he bought the network.

Stelter had written in his widely read newsletter (CNN.com, 2/7/22) that Malone’s comments “stoked fears that Discovery might stifle CNN journalists and steer away from calling out indecency and injustice.” He pushed back against Malone by name, pointing out the contrast between CNN‘s international team of on-the-ground reporters and Fox‘s overwhelming reliance on punditry rather than reporting:

The people who say the Zucker-era CNN was lacking in real journalism clearly were not watching CNN directly. My best guess is that they were watching talking heads and reading columnists complain about CNN. And yes, I’m including John Malone in this.

Malone told the New York Times (8/18/22) that he had “nothing to do with” Stelter’s cancellation, but in the same breath added that he wants “the ‘news’ portion of CNN to be more centrist, but I am not in control or directly involved.” Deadline (8/19/22) reported that an inside source said: “If this isn’t coming from John Malone directly, it sure represents his thinking with lieutenants doing his bidding.”

Independence is the cornerstone of journalism; without the ability to criticize those in power—including your own bosses—news is nothing more than stenography and propaganda. Independence also means, for a media reporter, focusing on attacks on the press based on who is actually committing them, not seeking balance where none exists.

Journalists at corporate media outlets like CNN are never truly independent, as FAIR has long argued. Those who stray outside a certain status quo (such as supporting a free Palestine outside of work hours, or opposing a US war of aggression) pay the price. Whether it was more Stelter’s criticism of Malone or his criticism of Fox that led to his removal, CNN‘s move sends a strong signal about what level of journalistic independence Malone and Licht will tolerate.

‘I get better press from CNN’

Dan Froomkin (Press Watch, 8/19/22): “CNN, far from offering any defensible reason for axing Stelter, has given every indication they fired him precisely because he was the right-wing propaganda machine’s No. 1 target.”

While those in power at CNN may want to move the network to the “center,” it’s worth dispelling the notion that the network was ever in the tank for the left. Previous CEO Zucker prioritized spectacle and ratings over journalism, without any particular political or principled agenda.

Zucker was roundly criticized by both the left and right for his “singular” role in Trump’s rise to power, handing “astonishing” amounts of free airtime to Trump in the 2016 election—rarely factchecked—and hiring Trump’s former campaign manager as an on-air analyst (Washington Post, 10/2/16; New York Times, 12/1/16). Until Fox News belatedly went all in on Trump, the candidate declared that “I get better press from CNN than I do Fox” (The Hill, 12/17/15).

After Trump’s election, as Trump and CNN became more adversarial, Zucker’s allegiance to ratings never flagged. As FAIR (2/26/21) noted, the network regularly aired Trump’s deceit-filled press briefings, even while its own anchors recognized them as “propaganda aired at taxpayer expense in the White House briefing room” (John King, CNN, 4/13/20)—but stopped airing Biden’s briefings a mere month into his term. And CNN distinguished itself from MSNBC by regularly hiring pro-Trump commentators and booking more Trump staffers (Hollywood Reporter, 10/13/18).

But Stelter and a few others at CNN were given the latitude to call out the flood of disinformation spewing forth from Fox and the GOP, which earned them the ire of the right. This didn’t make them partisan, any more than airing “both sides” without criticism makes journalism fair. As Stelter (8/21/22) argued on his last show:

It’s not partisan to stand up to demagogues. It’s required. It’s patriotic. We must make sure we don’t give platforms to those who are lying to our faces. But we also must make sure we are representing the total spectrum of debate and representing what’s going on in the country and the world.

He may not have always succeeded at that, but importantly, Stelter “was the symbol of a media establishment willing to question itself,” media critic Dan Froomkin (Twitter, 8/18/22)  observed. As media blogger and professor Jeff Jarvis (Whither News, 8/18/22) pointed out , the loss of Stelter coming at the same time as the departure of Washington Post columnist Margaret Sullivan—on top of the long-ago demise of the newspaper ombud—leaves few, if any, prominent media critics positioned inside corporate media. In other words, the idea of corporate media turning a critical lens upon itself, holding itself to account, appears to be virtually dead at a time when it’s more urgent than ever.

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