“Ugh Wolf is the worst.”
Wait…what?
Why would that phrase show up on the Twitter feed of CNN senior media correspondent and Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter? Does he really hate his colleague Wolf Blitzer? What kind of monster could dislike Wolf Blitzer?
Such burning questions.
Stelter quickly deleted the sentence he claimed that he was cutting and pasting. But why would he cut and paste something so cruel about Wolf?
Silvia Killingsworth, managing editor of The New Yorker, totally busted him. “WE ALL SAW THAT, BRIAN,” she shouted on Twitter, Stelter’s preferred daily mode of communication.
Stelter had a great excuse: His own stupidity.
Killingsworth had doubts. “Whaaaaaat do you mean copy and paste?” she asked.
Stelter replied, “Not my words. (I wouldn’t say that on OR offline.) I’d copy and pasted someone else’s words.”
Killingsworth taunted him, urging, “Then doxx who said it.”
Stelter put on his best dumb hat and said, “I’m not internet savvy enough to know what doxxing is.”
(Really? Does anyone seriously believe that Stelter, the epitome of “new media,” has no idea what doxxing is? Has he also never heard of GotNews‘ Charles C. Johnson? For the uninitiated, doxxing, according to an online definition, means to “search for and publish private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent.”)
Killingsworth was in pure helping mode. “It’s what you were doing to the person who typed what you copy-pasted,” she explained.
For everyone who was just catching up, Stelter again explained what happened.
“I accidentally tweeted something that someone wrote to me via DM,” he wrote. “I’d copy-pasted it. Massive fail.”
Yeah, massive.
Later Stelter had more excuses and another admission of failure. (FYI: @cushac is Andy Cush, a staff writer at Gawker.)
A couple of Twitter unknowns fiercely defended Blitzer.
- “Freud is watching. And don’t worry Wolf already hated you.”
- “I’ve never heard of you, but now I know you as the guy who messed with The Wolf. You’ll never be in his league.”
Stelter lamented to Mediaite‘s Evan McMurry, “Sometimes it’s better not to tweet.”
He has had self-punishing explanations: 1. “I feel like the world’s worst Twitter user — and that’s REALLY saying something, isn’t it!” 2. “That’s right. iIhad [sic]copy/pasted someone else’s words, specifically because i disagree, then accidentally tweeted the paste :-(” 3. “Yes. I had copy & pasted someone else’s words and then accidentally tweeted it. I’m a Twitter dunce, but, a fan of Wolf.”
The Mirror can only imagine how Stelter is going to dig himself out of his hole at the CNN water cooler.