Stelter Flips
Clearly CNN media critic Brian Stelter goes whichever way to the Jeff Zucker wind blows.
As it became more and more obvious that CNN host Chris Duomo had crossed all journalistic lines In helping his brother Andrew try and stay in the NY governor mansion, Stelter continued to give him a pass.
But, the minute CNN fired Cuomo, Stelter flipped faster than a political candidate running for office.
Stelter said that Cuomo “violated journalistic ethics and norms not once or twice, but many times,” adding that Cuomo “had been suspended not just, you know, for a week, not in the kind of way that’s a fake suspension to take pressure off CNN, this was a real suspension.”
“I think this may be a situation, just drawing on my years as a media reporter, I think this may be a situation where it was death by a 1,000 cuts, where there were just so many headaches, time and time again, involving Chris Cuomo, that even though many viewers loved watching ‘Cuomo Prime Time’ and looked forward to his show, that he was causing so many headaches for the network and for CNN staffers, that ultimately this decision was reached,” Stelter said. “That’s just drawing on my background, you know, covering other stories like this. I do think, you know, this is a moment where journalistic ethics are at play. And I know there were many CNN staffers very unhappy with the situation, very frustrated by Chris Cuomo.”
In other words, Stelter supported Chris Cuomo right up until the time that Jeff Zucker did not.
Here is the moment that Stelter flipped like a pancake: