Brian Stelter is back at CNN two years after being fired from the cable channel
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Brian Stelter returns to CNN two years after the cable network canceled his show and fired him.
Stelter announced the news in a lengthy essay in the company’s newsletter “Reliable Sources,” the namesake of the network’s now-defunct weekly program that Stelter led until his firing in 2022.
“I’m returning to CNN in a brand new role as Chief Media Analyst, which means I’ll appear on television, develop digital content and lead this newsletter. It will be different because I’m different,” Stelter wrote to readers.
Stelter’s successor at Reliable Sources, Oliver Darcy, left the company to start his own company, Status, which the startup describes as an “evening briefing that informs readers about what Really in the corridors of media power.” During his absence from CNN, Stelter occasionally appeared on the show, including as a pit stop on Kaitlan Collins’ evening show “The Source.”
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“I always scoffed at people who said ‘getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to me’ – until it happened to me. After more than 20 years of being a news junkie, I changed my ways and withdrew for a while. I also changed my viewpoint and moved from Manhattan to a horse farm near one of Donald Trump’s golf clubs,” Stelter said.
The former CNN anchor went on to tell readers that he has “experienced the news more like a regular consumer and has learned a lot about the attention economy and the information ecosystem.”
Stelter’s original firing came in August 2022 as the network sought to cut costs during the tenure of controversial former CNN chairman and CEO Chris Licht. Licht’s time at the network was marked by a drive to create a less opinion-driven and politicized product that would appeal to a broader audience, but that effort was largely overshadowed by a series of internal challenges during his tenure.
It is widely believed that Stelter was fired by Licht and CNN executives for writing his 2020 book “Hoax” about CNN rival Fox News Channel, which was seen as a political move.
