If you thought Brian Stelter did damage while at CNN, wait until he’s spewing his left-wing narratives to impressionable young students at Harvard who likely won’t be able to differentiate fact from fiction (if they’re consciously choosing to take Stelter’s class).
Stelter is set to lecture students about media and “threats to democracy” at the Shorenstein Center. The research center has acted as the nexus for left-leaning corporate media tycoons to come together and tackle alleged misinformation, also known as information the media chooses to ignore until it no longer hurts their partisan interests (i.e., Hunter Biden’s laptop, but more on that later).
CNN canceled “Reliable Sources” in late August amid a shakeup at the network. Stelter haș graduated from a network that no one watches to acting as a gatekeeper for the media’s narratives. But the Shorenstein Center specializes in media gatekeeping, so it’s only natural they hired Stelter.
Former New York Times reporter Ben Smith wrote that a study from the Shorenstein Center that examined coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop in the final days of the 2020 election served an an “‘instructive case study on the power of social media and news organizations to mitigate media manipulation campaigns.'”
The Shorenstein Center has also relied on media executives at outlets like CNN, Buzzfeed News, NBC, MSNBC and more to “help newsroom leaders fight misinformation and media manipulation.”
The attendees worked with faculty and staff at the Shorenstein Center to “develop procedures and protocols for handling this great threat to the media ecosystem, and thereby protecting the functioning of democracy,” so that participants may “apply findings of years of misinformation research to their own work and the work of their newsrooms.”
Several of these left-leaning corporate media outlets smeared the Hunter Biden laptop story as disinformation, but yes, let’s trust them to handle the misinformation they create.
Research director at the Shorenstein Center, Joan Donovan, said in November of 2020 that the “sourcing” of the laptop “just stinks of tradecraft. It stinks of a drop.”
“The sourcing of the laptop being dropped off in Delaware at a lonely repairman’s shop that’s just … if you can charge $85 for fixing a broken laptop, I want to know you,” Donovan said, seemingly expressing skepticism about the laptop’s validity.
To boot, the Shorenstein Center conducted a study and found that within former President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, the very same outlets they are working with had heavy anti-Trump bias in their coverage.
Perhaps Stelter’s show would have narrowly avoided by Chris Licht’s chopping board had the show done what it was supposed to do, that is, be reliable. But alas, as with most corporate media outlets, Stelter’s show fanned the flames of divisiveness through no fault of anyone else except Stelter.
Stelter waited two years to lay credence to the Hunter Biden laptop story. Stelter admitted just weeks before his show was canceled that the scandal was not just some “right-wing media” story as some outlets, including his own, suggested during the height of the 2020 presidential election.
Stelter called the laptop a “real problem” for the Biden’s. (RELATED: ‘Politically Opportunistic’: Students Unenthusiastic Over De Blasio’s Harvard Debut)
NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 09: Brian Stelter attends the 12th Annual CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute at American Museum of Natural History on December 9, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for CNN )
But Stelter was skeptical of the laptop, claiming it was “tied to a Russian disinformation effort” to take down Biden.
“There’s a lot about this story that does not add up,” Stelter said in October of 2020. “And, I mean, for all we know, these emails were made up, or maybe some are real and some are fakes, we don’t know. But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine.”
Stelter then tried to deny that his own network pushed disinformation after a college student derailed a disinformation conference.
Christopher Phillips lodged a question to Stelter about how CNN pushed the “Jussie Smollett hoax,” smeared Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Nick Sandmann, ignored the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and pushed the Russian Collusion Hoax. Stelter feigned ignorance – maybe he didn’t feign it, who knows.
“I think you’re describing a different channel than the one I watch. But I understand that it is a popular right-wing narrative about CNN,” Stelter defended.
It was Stelter’s beloved CNN that lied about podcast host Joe Rogan’s use of Ivermectin to treat the coronavirus, with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta later conceding on an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” that the outlet was wrong to claim Rogan was using a horse dewormer.
Let’s not forget how Stelter accused the “GOP media,” including Fox News, of “riot denialism” for not allegedly not focusing enough attention on former Vice President Mike Pence’s interview … on Hannity … on Fox News.
Of course Stelter’s allegations are rich, given he shilled for a network which downplayed the Black Lives Matter riots. One chyron displayed on CNN during its Kenosha coverage called the events “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” as buildings burned to the ground in the background.
Needless to say, Stelter’s departure from CNN is perhaps not something to cheer, as he now will be preaching to malleable minds about the very ills he claims to want to fight.