I’m going to be rooting for this place for the rest of my life: Stelter on CNN

Aug 21, 2022

“Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter said he’ll be “rooting for” CNN for the rest of his life as he signed off his final broadcast Sunday, following the show’s cancellation this week.

“So much of the media ecosystem in 2022 is garbage, but so much of it is spectacular,” he said in his closing remarks. “The hard part is sorting out the treasure from the trash.”

The network announced Thursday that “Reliable Sources” had been canceled after three decades, and that Stelter, who had hosted the show since 2013, will depart the network. The host thanked CNN’s current leadership “for letting us say goodbye,” and also thanked former CNN President Jeff Zucker by name.

Stelter hosted journalist Carl Bernstein on Sunday’s program, as well as media critics Eric Deggans, Jodie Ginsberg and David Zurawik. Journalist Brian Karem, who was the first guest on “Reliable Sources” in 1992, also made an appearance as the last guest.

That has been a pervasive fear in media for more than a generation, given rampant corporate consolidation. Later in the show, Eric Deggans, NPR’s TV critic, said that the whole idea of CNN become more “centrist” misses the point.

“I think the problem is that people put a political lens on top of something that is about preserving democracy and about holding politicians accountable, when you have one politician who’s denouncing the press as the enemy of the people, when you have one politician who insists he won an election he did not win, when you have one politician who’s blaming immigrants unfairly for America’s ills, you have to have a journalism apparatus that is free to call out those excesses without fear of being accused to being unfair.”

Stelter did not say what he plans to do next, but the Reliable Sources newsletter will continue under Oliver Darcy, senior media reporter. After thanking his family and the network staff and executives, told viewers, “This show is going away but there’s going to be so many more. We need to have room for media criticism debate and discussion, and we will.”