After Two-Year Exodus, Mr. Potato Head Makes Ignominious Return to CNN

Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:

Look at what pasty flesh-blob the cat dragged in.

He was always a CNN basic bitch at heart; he’s just coming home now.

Via Variety (emphasis added):

“In an email to subscribers of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” media newsletter, Stelter said he will be returning as the lead author of the publication he founded in 2015. He said he will relaunch the newsletter on Sept. 9. In addition, Stelter will make on-air appearances on CNN as a commentator and create “digital content.”

Under CNN’s previous leadership regime, the news network parted ways with Stelter after cancelling the TV show (also called “Reliable Sources”) in 2022. Stelter returns to pick up the mantle of “Reliable Sources” newsletter after the exit last month of Oliver Darcy, who had come aboard to work on the newsletter and was assigned to keep the newsletter moving…

“But this is not going to be a ‘Back to the Future’ remake,” Stelter wrote in the email Tuesday. “The media industry has matured, CNN has evolved, and I have changed a lot since I signed off two years ago. I loved my old life as the anchor of a Sunday morning show but, to borrow some lingo from my video game blogger days, I finished that level of the game. Time for new levels, new challenges.”

Stelter said he’s returning to CNN in a new role as chief media analyst, “which means I’ll be appearing on air, developing digital content, and helming this newsletter. It will be different, because I am different.””

Spoiler alert: It won’t be different.

Whether Stelter is in at CNN or floating around somewhere in the ether grasping for relevance — it doesn’t really matter. 

I’ll be honest; the entire reason I’m writing this is to justify dredging up humiliating clips of Brian Stelter for schadenfreude, an indulgence I trust you will forgive.  

Here is Michael Wolff brutally denigrating Stelter on his very own show, met with uncomfortable sociopathic fake chuckling from Stelter and not even an attempt at self-defense. It’s about as close to small penis humiliation porn as we’ll ever get on network television.

https://youtu.be/x-3e9ujHTEA?si=Ay7-fDI03XYSgUxY

“I think the media has done a terrible job… you’re full of sanctimony. You become one of the parts of the problem with the media. You come on here and you have a monopoly on truth, you know exactly how things are supposed to be done, you are one of the reasons people can’t stand the media. It’s your fault…”

Don’t talk to much. Listen more. People have genuine problems with the media… the media doesn’t get the story right… You’re incredibly repetitive… week after week…. There’s a problem here. Figuring out what is real is not so easy. And most people don’t want to turn to Brian Stelter to tell us what’s real.”

Here is Stelter pretending to not understand or actually not understanding — which is worse? — how the profit motive for corporate state media works, claiming that network executives don’t care about ratings.

https://x.com/dremicdre/status/1407308570287349763

Have some Infometal.

https://youtu.be/0PVoiKDPiTY?si=d8STE793Mv1bmVvQ

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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