It’s been a while since we checked in on the state of Stelter Derangement Syndrome at the Media Research Center, and you’ll be pleased to know that it’s in full flower. Let’s travel back to last year, when a July 10 post by Clay Waters complained that Stelter appeared on a podcast:
The July 2 edition of Slate’s “What Next” podcast, “Is This the End of NPR and PBS?” began its argument for continuing to fund public television and radio with an ancient 1969 clip of Fred Rogers testifying before Congress. Before being officially introduced, guest Brian Stelter, CNN media analyst and all-around defender of the legacy media, was heard calling the clip “mesmerizing.”
Waters further whined: “So it’s not ‘reality’ that PBS has a dramatic liberal bias? For one, PBS displays it by putting on Brian Stelter and no conservative media critics.” We don’t recall Waters ever complaining that right-wing shows put on only right-wing critics. He further groused:
Stelter laid out the details of Trump’s efforts to strip funding from PBS and NPR via a “rescissions package” by July 18, before a history lesson regarding the creation of public broadcasting in the late 1960s. Stelter offered up his own approximation of what conservatives think of PBS and NPR — a little overwrought but basically accurate.
[…]But Stelter transformed the perfectly mainstream push to cut taxpayer funding from PBS and NPR into a sinister quest by President Trump to squelch dissent, an idea he delivered over doleful piano tones:
Waters didn’t explain how, exactly, that’s not the case.
Tim Graham served up his own complaint in his July 25 podcast:
Is Brian Stelter tremendously unaware of what CNN sounds like? Brian’s so-called “Reliable Sources” newsletter seems to be currently based on the concept that the only sources that are reliable are the ones that hate Donald Trump with an unquenchable passion. Everyone else is meek and cowardly. Any concession to Trump and somehow authoritarianism is on the march.
The current onus of concession is the Paramount merger with Skydance. In his newsletter on Friday, Stelter freaked out over the merger, insisting CBS is caving to an authoritarian, just as media outlets allegedly submitted to Viktor Orban in Hungary.
[…]Stelter and his Hungarian expert think one of the most Reliable Sources is CBS “comedian” Stephen Colbert, whose show will be ending in ten months. Then there are the screechers at 60 Minutes. Anyone who would seek to curtail their incessant partisanship, including their promotional interviews with every Democrat from Biden to Harris to Obama to both Clintons – they’re bowing to an aspiring tyrant. They’re not fearless or independent when it comes to interviewing Democrats.
Nevertheless, Stelter lectured “the democratic backsliding in Hungary was partly achieved through media capture and control of culture.” The liberal media have achieved capture, and don’t want anyone to challenge them. Stelter quoted Biden’s ambassador to Hungary, a gay-rights activist named David Pressman, comparing Trump to Orban in The New York Times:“here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have — not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray.”
Graham didn’t explain how what was clear to most observers — that CBS’ cancellation of Colbert came at the same time its parent was seeking approval for a merger and had paid millions of dollars to Donald Trump to settle a lawsuit — was not actually the case.
Graham returned to whine in an Aug. 20 column:
Liberal journalists who decry an allegedly pusillanimous White House press corps under Trump never seem to spend ten seconds considering how “courageous” this group was under Biden.
CNN “Chief Media Analyst” Brian Stelter tweeted: “The Trump White House has sought to reshape the press corps in its favor this year, and today showcased how well the effort has succeeded.” Stelter was unhappy that no one ruined Trump’s Q&A session in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Wlodomyr Zelensky.
“This display, especially in front of foreign leaders, is so embarrassing,” Stelter said an anonymous White House reporter told him. “Many of the questions aren’t designed to get answers, but to create another confrontation or make Trump look good. That’s not journalism.”
The less-than-courageous journalist added: “High schoolers could do a better job than some of these people.” Wouldn’t it be nice to know which liberal was doing the lecturing here, so we could compare it to their questions at the White House? Was it a CNN reporter?
Graham never calls out right-wing repoters this harshly. Indeed, he went on to tout how Stephen “RedSteeze” Miller “upbraided Stelter” but refused to disclose that Miller is a right-winger.
Graham returned for a Sept. 17 post grousing that Stelter complained about Trump’s lawsuit against the New York Times:
Donald Trump sued The New York Times for an astronomical $15 billion, alleging it defamed him. While it doesn’t sound like it will win in court, Trump’s lawsuits have pressured anti-Trump media companies to produce documents or move to settle. On CNN’s The Situation Room on Tuesday, Brian Stelter produced the usual litany about how Trump is “silencing” the “independent” media and that’s “dangerous.”
Translation: How dare you attempt to call Democrat-repeating media outlets publicity arms of the Democrat Party!
[…]All of the left-wing lawfare attempts against Trump trying to ruin his fortune and put him in jail were “intimidation tactics,” in which they were willing participtants.
But the leftist media routinely demonstrate they think what they do is never “dangerous” or “intimidating.” Everything they do is a gloriously independent defense of democracy. And if you think they’re not partisan, you probably also believe Jimmy Kimmel when he says Charlie Kirk’s killer is MAGA.
And Graham and his fellow right-wingers have never indulged in lawfare tactics or intimidation against the liberals they consider their enemies? Please.