Another high-profile CNN personality is set to leave the network, as it was announced Thursday that the network is canceling the long-running Reliable Sources. The show will run for the last time on Sunday, and the host of that show for the past nine years, Brian Stelter, will be leaving the network.
Stelter leaves CNN in the same nine-month period that former anchor Chris Cuomo was fired by the network due to his involvement in the defense of his brother, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned amid a sexual-harassment scandal.
Former president of the network Jeff Zucker then resigned in February of this year when he failed to acknowledge a romantic relationship with another executive at the company. Since Zucker left, Stelter has been considered to be on thin ice at the network.
The 36-year-old Stelter has been a vocal critic of former president Donald Trump. Although Stelter’s show was supposed to be about media and how it covered the news, the host often delved into political speculation, especially when it came to the former president.
“It was a rare privilege to lead a weekly show focused on the press at a time when it has never been more consequential,” Stelter said in a statement to NPR. Stelter promised to say more on the last episode of Reliable Sources, which will air on Sunday.
On Twitter, Stelter proclaimed, “I loved anchoring @ReliableSources. It was a rare privilege to lead a weekly show focused on the press at a time when it has never been more consequential.”
“We’re going to do it one more time. One more show. This Sunday morning. The small but mighty producing team is working on bookings and ideas right now. I am in awe of their talent and I am going to do everything I can to help them find new roles,” Stelter wrote.
Earlier this month, in what many saw as a last-ditch attempt to remain employed at the network, Stelter had an epiphany about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which CNN and the rest of the mainstream media ignored in the run up to the 2020 election.
“What about his son? What about Hunter?” Stelter asked in an interview with Michael LaRosa, the former press secretary for first lady Jill Biden. “Hunter under federal investigation, charges can be coming at any time, this is not just a right-wing media story. This is a real problem for the Bidens.”
Stelter came to CNN from the New York Times where he was also a media reporter. The decision to cancel Reliable Sources ends the thirty year run of the network’s longest-running show.
The network has been making cuts since Time Warner and Discovery, Inc. completed their merger in April of this year to become WarnerMedia.
Besides the Cuomo and Zucker fiascos, the network also suffered an embarrassing failure when their streaming service CNN+ shut down less than a month after launching. The network blamed low subscription numbers and “subscription fatigue” for that failure.
But maybe it failed due to the network’s far-left views regarding the news of the day. Perhaps it failed because they stubbornly refused to realize that news consumers don’t want to be told what to think about the news — they just want information.
There is some speculation that Jim Acosta may be next to go at CNN. Acosta was constantly at odds with the Trump White House and had many verbal altercations with Trump and press secretaries Sarah Sanders and Kayleigh McEnany. In one memorable encounter, while Trump was still president-elect, Trump blasted Acosta and the network, referring to them as “fake news.”
It’s a shame that Stelter, Reliable Sources, and CNN chose to push leftist propaganda instead of actual news. In this world, new consumers could really use more shows that examine the news media in an honest way. But, perhaps that’s too much to ask for.
