CNN host Brian Stelter has been widely mocked for wondering aloud if there are any media companies that cover President Donald Trump with a partisan slant.
The segment: Stelter posed the question during a panel discussion Sunday on his media analysis talk show, “Reliable Sources.
- The panelists were three liberal critics of the right, Columbia University historian Nicole Hemmer, The 19th editor Errin Haines and Baltimore Sun media columnist David Zurawik.
Stelter bemoaned that speculation in conservative media about presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s mental fitness is “negative partisanship in action” and “it’s getting more severe.”
- Then, he asked his guests: “When you see entire media companies essentially exist to tear down Joe Biden, is there an equivalent of that on the left, tearing down Trump?”
- “There really isn’t,” replied Haines.
- “It’s really a diet of this type of information that a lot of these voters are getting,” she continued. “If that’s all they’re getting to the exclusion of the more traditional legacy media, then it really is no surprise what their understanding is of this country and our politics.”
- “Such an important point,” Stelter agreed.
The reaction: Many commentators on the right scoffed at what they deemed another clueless liberal take by Stelter.
Christian author Dan Darling was among those who noted the host could’ve just turned around to find an example of an anti-Trump media company.
- “Not much self awareness here,” he tweeted.
Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld both made the point on-air Monday that CNN journalists must not watch their own network.
Stelter suggested in a tweet after his show on Sunday that critics of the segment didn’t understand the difference between reporting and opinion journalism.
But Fox News media reporter Joseph Wulfsohn on Tuesday provided a list of examples of over-the-top anti-Trump commentary by CNN’s supposedly objective primetime news anchors.
- Wulfsohn also called Stelter “CNN’s biggest anti-Trump critic” and recalled the host’s questioning of Trump’s mental fitness in an August 2017 segment.
- “Is the president of the United States a racist?” Stelter asked at the time. “Is he suffering from some kind of illness? Is he fit for office? And if he is unfit, then what?”
