The MRC's Stelter Derangement Syndrome: 2025 Edition
The Media Research Center continued its meltdowns over Brian Stelter's media criticism-- and was offended that he defended the BBC as President Trump threatened to sue it over its editing of a speech.
The Media Research Center’s freakouts over Brian Stelter continued into 2025 with a Feb. 5 column by Tim Graham:
Brian Stelter is back in his CNN comfort zone, penning those punchy sentences about “Trump’s history of bullying media companies.” It’s as if he cannot conceive of the opposing view, as in “the legacy media’s history of bullying Donald Trump.” They’ve played rough — seeking to destroy his political career, bankrupt his businesses, and even put him in jail for years.
CNN’s nightmare came true, and Trump overcame massive media bullying to win another term in the White House. Now the Stelters of the world desperately want the media to keep its bullying spirit strong. This includes fighting Trump in court instead of settling.
On February 2, CNN touted Stelter’s quote from an anonymous CBS correspondent who doesn’t want CBS to surrender to Trump’s lawyers and provide a full transcript of their softball “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris from October. The quote was “Trump’s lawsuit was a joke but if we settle, we become a laughingstock.”
Just as Stelter generously awarded anonymity to all the leftists burrowed inside Fox News, he’s now granting safety to leftists inside CBS who think the brass are never anti-Trump enough. The sources are persistently anonymous because CNN loves these leftist hot takes.
Graham didn’t explain how it’s “leftist” to fight a lawsuit by a Republican president bent on retribution and can’t identify any damages he suffered. Graham continued to whine that Stelter was, you know, covering the media:
But overall, Stelter lined up Trump’s new press policies – shuffling media work spaces at the Pentagon, the FCC questioning NPR and PBS, “the government deleting [Democrat] web pages full of valuable data,” and “the White House deriding real news stories as hoaxes.” He said it’s all designed to say only Trump can be trusted.
Stelter faced no opponent on CNN to rebut him, especially on that last “hoaxes” bit. In the first Trump term, CNN aggressively promoted the Russian collusion hoax for years, and Stelter loved fervent Trump opponent Michael Avenatti so much he buttered him up as a plausible presidential candidate. That didn’t turn out to be a “real news story.” Avenatti went to jail.
Graham offered no opponent to rebut Stelter or prove anything he said to be wrong, and it’s weird that he can’t stop referencing the very old news of Avenatti.
Jorge Bonilla huffed in a Feb. 13 post that Stelter pointed out to MRC-fave right-winger Scott Jennings that while Trump hold more media availabilities than President Biden did, he also lies a lot:
Stelter went to the “but Trump lies” card after Jennings wrecked him on transparency, and he has a point. President Donald Trump has likely had more Resolute Desk press conferences than Joe Biden has had press conferences. And unlike Biden, Trump does not require cue cards with the journalist’s name, image, outlet, and question.
Alex Christy raged in an April 15 post that Stelter ran to the defense of NPR and PBS:
For the Tax Day edition of CNN’s Inside Politics on Tuesday, media correspondent Brian Stelter joined host Dana Bash to allege that President Trump wants to defund PBS and NPR for “simply covering the news.” If Stelter really believes that then he has a funny definition of what is newsworthy.
Of course, any media segment about defunding public broadcasting has to include a good deal of fearmongering and Stelter saw no reason for this one to be any different:
[…]
Bash acted as if that was the most profound argument she had ever heard, “Yeah, that is such a good point.”
When Stelter pointed out that NPR and PBS are being punished by the Trump administration for “simply covering the news,” Fondacaro insisted that transgender people aren’t newsworthy, particularly whining about “an entire movie celebrating a transgender teenager’s so-called ‘changing gender identity’”:
Not a segment profiling a transgender teenager, an entire movie. What news value to “genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts” or Lil Miss Hot Mess have? And that is before we get to non-transgender related examples like NPR’s 2020 “the racial origins of fat phobia.”
Fondacaro refused to explain why that last thing was not newsworthy.
Graham returned to whine in an April 23 post that Stelter called Trump’s war on PBS and NPR an autocratic move:
President Trump’s backing of a rescission of more than $1 billion in advance funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is freaking out the leftist media. On Saturday night, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter smeared the effort as “right out of the autocratic playbook.” The Left will be the heroes if “there are pro-democracy coalitions that are stronger than the wannabe autocrat.”
On CNN Newsroom in the 7 pm hour, anchor Jessica Dean first asked about the Trump White House taking the wire services out of the daily press-pool rotation, so AP and Reuters have less daily access. Stelter claimed “the bigger picture is very clear. The Trump White House wants fewer skeptical reporters and more sycophants. They want a lot fewer hardballs.” But the “good news” is that CNN and ABC and NBC are “still asking the tough questions.”
Left unsaid: did CNN and the rest ask the “hardballs” when Obama and Biden were in the White House? Or were they “sycophants”?
Funny how Graham throws around biased and inaccurate terms like “leftist media” while refusing to properly and accurately identify right-wing media like Fox News. Still, he whined:
It is NOT autocratic to advocate for defunding that sound like State-Run Radio and State-Run TV (when Democrats rule). It is autocratic to take our money and smear us with it. And CNN’s MJ Lee sounded autocratic in her demands to run the conservatives out of the national discourse.
Those Republicans were supporting an attempted insurrection against the government because Trump was emotionally incapable of accepting that he lost an election. Why does Graham think people like that deserve to participate in the national discourse?
Alex Christy went the Stelter derangement route for a June 5 post:
CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter joined The Situation Room on Wednesday morning to freak out over President Trump’s rescission package that asks Congress to revoke funding for PBS and NPR. According to Stelter, not only would such a move cause local affiliates to “suffer as well,” but he also hyped PEN America saying the real reason for the move was about “discouraging real news.”
Co-host Pamela Brown wondered about the rescission’s chance of success, “So then are there any Republicans who have signaled that they will support keeping this funding? How do we expect this to play out?”
[…]
Additionally, it is frustrating to watch Stelter, who never hesitates to point out what he sees as problems with conservative media or bias at places like Fox News, just rhetorically shrug his shoulders and suggest bias at NPR and PBS is just a matter of opinion.
Why doesn’t Christy or anyone else at the MRC see bias at Fox News as a problem, while obsessing over purported bias at PBS and NPR? He refuses to explain.
A July 10 post by Clay Waters complained that Stelter appeared on a podcast:
The July 2 edition of Slate’s “What Next” podcast, “Is This the End of NPR and PBS?” began its argument for continuing to fund public television and radio with an ancient 1969 clip of Fred Rogers testifying before Congress. Before being officially introduced, guest Brian Stelter, CNN media analyst and all-around defender of the legacy media, was heard calling the clip “mesmerizing.”
Waters further whined: “So it’s not ‘reality’ that PBS has a dramatic liberal bias? For one, PBS displays it by putting on Brian Stelter and no conservative media critics.” We don’t recall Waters ever complaining that right-wing shows put on only right-wing critics. He further groused:
Stelter laid out the details of Trump’s efforts to strip funding from PBS and NPR via a “rescissions package” by July 18, before a history lesson regarding the creation of public broadcasting in the late 1960s. Stelter offered up his own approximation of what conservatives think of PBS and NPR — a little overwrought but basically accurate.
[…]
But Stelter transformed the perfectly mainstream push to cut taxpayer funding from PBS and NPR into a sinister quest by President Trump to squelch dissent, an idea he delivered over doleful piano tones:
Waters didn’t explain how, exactly, that’s not the case.
Graham served up his own complaint in his July 25 podcast:
Is Brian Stelter tremendously unaware of what CNN sounds like? Brian’s so-called “Reliable Sources” newsletter seems to be currently based on the concept that the only sources that are reliable are the ones that hate Donald Trump with an unquenchable passion. Everyone else is meek and cowardly. Any concession to Trump and somehow authoritarianism is on the march.
The current onus of concession is the Paramount merger with Skydance. In his newsletter on Friday, Stelter freaked out over the merger, insisting CBS is caving to an authoritarian, just as media outlets allegedly submitted to Viktor Orban in Hungary.
[…]
Stelter and his Hungarian expert think one of the most Reliable Sources is CBS “comedian” Stephen Colbert, whose show will be ending in ten months. Then there are the screechers at 60 Minutes. Anyone who would seek to curtail their incessant partisanship, including their promotional interviews with every Democrat from Biden to Harris to Obama to both Clintons – they’re bowing to an aspiring tyrant. They’re not fearless or independent when it comes to interviewing Democrats.
Nevertheless, Stelter lectured “the democratic backsliding in Hungary was partly achieved through media capture and control of culture.” The liberal media have achieved capture, and don’t want anyone to challenge them. Stelter quoted Biden’s ambassador to Hungary, a gay-rights activist named David Pressman, comparing Trump to Orban in The New York Times:“here, too, powerful people are responding to authoritarian advances just as their Hungarian counterparts have — not with defiance, but with capitulation, convinced that they can maintain their independence and stay above the fray.”
Graham didn’t explain how what was clear to most observers — that CBS’ cancellation of Colbert came at the same time its parent was seeking approval for a merger and had paid millions of dollars to Donald Trump to settle a lawsuit — was not actually the case.
Graham returned to whine in an Aug. 20 column:
Liberal journalists who decry an allegedly pusillanimous White House press corps under Trump never seem to spend ten seconds considering how “courageous” this group was under Biden.
CNN “Chief Media Analyst” Brian Stelter tweeted: “The Trump White House has sought to reshape the press corps in its favor this year, and today showcased how well the effort has succeeded.” Stelter was unhappy that no one ruined Trump’s Q&A session in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Wlodomyr Zelensky.
“This display, especially in front of foreign leaders, is so embarrassing,” Stelter said an anonymous White House reporter told him. “Many of the questions aren’t designed to get answers, but to create another confrontation or make Trump look good. That’s not journalism.”
The less-than-courageous journalist added: “High schoolers could do a better job than some of these people.” Wouldn’t it be nice to know which liberal was doing the lecturing here, so we could compare it to their questions at the White House? Was it a CNN reporter?
Graham never calls out right-wing repoters this harshly. Indeed, he went on to tout how Stephen “RedSteeze” Miller “upbraided Stelter” but refused to disclose that Miller is a right-winger.
Graham returned for a Sept. 17 post grousing that Stelter complained about Trump’s lawsuit against the New York Times:
Donald Trump sued The New York Times for an astronomical $15 billion, alleging it defamed him. While it doesn’t sound like it will win in court, Trump’s lawsuits have pressured anti-Trump media companies to produce documents or move to settle. On CNN’s The Situation Room on Tuesday, Brian Stelter produced the usual litany about how Trump is “silencing” the “independent” media and that’s “dangerous.”
Translation: How dare you attempt to call Democrat-repeating media outlets publicity arms of the Democrat Party!
[…]
All of the left-wing lawfare attempts against Trump trying to ruin his fortune and put him in jail were “intimidation tactics,” in which they were willing participtants.
But the leftist media routinely demonstrate they think what they do is never “dangerous” or “intimidating.” Everything they do is a gloriously independent defense of democracy. And if you think they’re not partisan, you probably also believe Jimmy Kimmel when he says Charlie Kirk’s killer is MAGA.
And Graham and his fellow right-wingers have never indulged in lawfare tactics or intimidation against the liberals they consider their enemies? Please.
Bashing Stelter over BBC stance
The MRC’s serious case of Stelter Derangement Syndrome continued unabated at the end of last year. Graham weighed in on Stelter’s take on the controversy between President Trump and the BBC in a Nov. 10 post:
Leftists like CNN’s chief media analyst Brian Stelter feel terrible about two top executives at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) tendering their resignations over a really bad edit of Donald Trump’s speech to supporters on January 6, 2021. Those right-wingers are ruining things again by focusing on aggressive media mangling of the facts.
In a video on X, Stelter lamented that this edit shouldn’t have forced resignations, but the BBC “exists in an incredibly politically charged environment, even as it tries to be apolitical and impartial.” Wrong. Nobody believes they’re “trying” to be apolitical. They want to be perceived as impartial even as they’re extremely partial.
As Stelter notes, the BBC has faced relentless criticism over its relentless bias against Israel and in favor of Hamas in its reporting from Gaza.
[…]
The lefties are also concerned about the re-evaluation of the BBC’s license-fee system of funding “public” media. British households pay £174.50 ($230) a year for BBC shows and services, which leads to conservative complaints about involuntarily supporting anti-conservative media.
No one probably fears for the BBC under a Labour Party government, but the BBC’s brand is definitely struggling, just like aggressive bias caused a funding problem for PBS and NPR.
Two days later, it was Bonilla’s turn to grouse about Stelter and the BBC:
PBS News Hour did an extended segment on the crisis currently roiling the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) over its grotesque edit of President Trump’s speech at The Ellipse on January 6th, 2021. This could have been an opportunity for reflection on what ails the media in this environment, and on the dangers of having Trump Derangement Syndrome infect editorial choices. Instead, we got seven-plus minutes of Brian Stelter doing damage control for the Beeb.
Anchor Geoff Bennett served here as an appliance more than as an interviewer. This was clearly Stelter’s segment- a platform for unchecked “context” and “nuance” on what the resignations at the BBC really mean, as opposed to a giant scandal brought forth by unfettered systemic media bias.
[…]
Here, as Stelter has done often throughout this BBC cycle, is the diminishment and isolation of the actual video splicing. Stelter frames it as a giant but narrow mistake that doesn’t obscure the broader meaning of Trump’s words and deeds on January 6th. In sum, Stelter is pleading “fake but accurate” on behalf of the BBC. But as I often tell people, deliberate actions are not “mistakes.” Splicing two video segments nearly an hour apart is not a “mistake”, but an intentional editorial decision. And someone who spent the pandemic and recovery arguing for censorship (“freedom of speech but not freedom of reach”, anyone?) should know better. The idea that the edit wasn’t “malicious”, as Stelter says earlier in the interview, is patently offensive.
As before, Bonilla failed to explain the context of Trump’s “fight like hell” remark during his speech, let alone explain why that should not be considered the speech’s dominant theme. Instead, he whined that “The whole exercise was designed to exculpate the BBC for their willful transgressions.”
Nicholas Fondacaro complained about Stelter’s critique of Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC, while also playing whataboutism, in a Dec. 17 post:
Earlier this week, President Trump filed a $10 billion defamation suit against the BBC alleging that they deceptively edited his speech from January 6, 2021 to omit his call for the a peaceful protest; something the BBC seemed to cop to in an apology they issued in November. The fresh suit caused CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter to clutch his pearls during a Tuesday edition of CNN News Central, where he suggested the suit was about chilling speech. He was wrong. The suits we’ve seen in recent years were to hold the media accountable, and save them from themselves.
“Number one, a year ago it was unheard of for a sitting American president to file a lawsuit against a news outlet. This never happened before until President Trump returned to office for his second term,” Stelter warned. “But now, this year, he has sued The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and as of this morning, the BBC. So, he is charting a new course, trying to take his war against the news media to court.”
Of course, Stelter conveniently ignored how the Obama Justice Department had targeted individual journalists and tried to lock them up: James Rosen (Fox News at the time) and James Risen (The New York Times at the time).
Fondacaro didn’t explain why he keeps citing alleged abuses under the Biden administration to justify actual abuses by Trump. He went on to grouse that Stelter pointed out that Trump filed his lawsuit against the BBC in Florida:
Despite of Stelter’s insistence that the case didn’t have standing in Florida, it arguably did for the same reasons the case against CNN was filed there. The BBC documentary was available online and viewable in Florida. Then there’s also the fact that Florida was Trump’s official residence (much like how Navy veteran Zachary Young’s business, Nemex was incorporated in Florida).
Stelter was right that a president had never taken the media to court so many times. But we’ve also not seen so many private citizens do the same until recent years.
Brian, maybe it’s because the media had never been more radical and reckless with their reporting. Since Trump first became president, the media had grown more vicious and zealous in their perceived moral superiority (a dangerous combo); seeing themselves as paladins wielding their pens like swords against what they’ve openly claimed was an “existential threat” to the country and existence.
It’s the reason they felt comfortable in targeting and smearing children like Nick Sandmann and 9-year-old Chiefs fan Holden Armenta. Also this year, just days before it went to trial, MSNBC had to settle their own defamation suit for erroneously dubbing a doctor the “uterus collector” because his had seen illegal immigrant women in ICE’s custody.
Conspicuously absent from Fondacaro’s list of media missteps: Fox News falsely smearingDominion with bogus charges of election fraud, for which Fox News ultimately agreed to pay Dominion $787 million.
Fondacaro closed by complaining that Stelter once called out Fox News: “Stelter was all for calling out what he saw as misinformation, like calling his efforts to put Fox News out of business “harm reduction”; but when it was about holding the leftist media to account for their misinformation, he condemned it.” Given Fox’s lies about Dominion, Fondacaro didn’t explain why Stelter’s case against Fox News is in any way inaccurate.
Why are you reporting news from last year?
I really liked the article about "Gabriel Hays" though.