CNN’s Anti-Trump Avatar Signs Off for the Last Time

On his last episode of “Reliable Sources,” host Brian Stelter, who reported on the media and now has become the latest victim of the trends reshaping it, noted that television is ephemeral, but boasted that his show “transcended that.”Nevertheless, the show’s time on the tube is up. “The free world needs CNN. The free world needs a reliable source,” Mr. Stelter intoned as he signed off for the last time. The cancellation of “Reliable Sources,” a Sunday morning mainstay, after nine years with Mr. Stelter at the helm, and 30 years overall, is just as much about a network in turmoil as the anchor who took the fall despite headlining what he called “one of CNN’s highest rated weekend shows.” As Mr. Stelter put it, “CNN has a new owner” and “I’m sad that I won’t be here to cover it.”The new boss is David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Brothers Discovery, a conglomerate created in April that brought HBO, CNN, and Warner Bros under one roof. Mr. Zaslav has explicitly called for a more moderate political approach at the network, which he said in February was “the leader in news to the left.” According to the New Yorker, “no CNN personality took on the fight against Trump’s disinformation more gamely” than Mr. Stelter did. He authored a book last year entitled “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth,” and was widely viewed as a fierce critic of President Trump and as part of the so-called “resistance” to the last administration. Warner Brothers Discovery’s most influential shareholder is John “Cable Cowboy” Malone, a television titan who is by some accounts the largest private landowner in America. Mr. Malone, widely seen as a mentor to Mr. Zaslav, told the New York Times that he wants “the ‘news’ portion of CNN to be more centrist” but vowed that he was not “in control or directly involved” in the decision to cancel Reliable Sources.Stirring speculation of a possible role for Mr. Malone in the end of “Reliable Sources” was a report from Mr. Stelter’s newsletter of the same name that comments by Mr. Malone in November expressing hope that CNN would “evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists” had “stoked fears that Discovery might stifle CNN journalists and steer away from calling out indecency and injustice.” As part of the shake up, Mr. Zaslav replaced Jeff Zucker, who had run the network and its satellites for years, with the former producer of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Chris Licht. Mr. Stelter was widely seen as a protege of Mr. Zucker, who put the print journalist and one time New York Times reporter on air. The ostensible cause of Mr. Zucker’s departure was an unreported romantic relationship with a coworker.Mr. Licht has been outspoken about the changes convulsing the company, with the Daily Beast reporting that he informed staffers on Friday that “There will be moves you may not agree with or understand.” One of the most dramatic of recent moves was the cancellation of CNN+ a mere month after its April launch. Mr. Licht labeled that outcome “a uniquely shitty situation.”

CNN’s Anti-Trump Avatar Signs Off for the Last Time

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