Brian Stelter is departing CNN after the network announced it is canceling his show “Reliable Sources,” a CNN spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Caller Thursday.
CNN President Chris Licht informed the host of the upcoming cancellation Wednesday. The Sunday show, the longest running on CNN, will end August 21.
“CNN will end its Reliable Sources program on Sunday, August 21st. As a result Brian Stelter will leave the company,” a CNN spokesperson told the Daily Caller. “We appreciate his contributions to the network and wish him well as he embarks on new endeavors.”
Stelter told the Daily Caller Thursday that it was a “rare privilege” to host a program offering insight into the “media, truth and the stories that shape our world.” He will provide more information on his departure during his show Sunday.
“I’m grateful for my nine years with CNN, proud of what we accomplished on Reliable Sources and so thankful for the viewers who tuned in every week for our examination of the media, truth and the stories that shape our world. It was a rare privilege to lead a weekly show focused on the press at a time when it has never been more consequential. I’ll have more to say on Sunday.”
As for me, I’m looking forward to continuing to cover the media and hold powerful people and institutions accountable. It’s important work and I’m grateful to do it at CNN.
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) August 18, 2022
Following the announcement, the show’s team had been offered to apply for new positions at the network, a spokesperson told the Daily Caller.
Licht had planned to give the network a bipartisan tone and had evaluated whether left-leaning anchors, including Stelter and Jim Acosta, were too partisan for the future. The network’s president had been making cuts since the Warner Bros. Discovery merger in the early spring, with several plans to reform the network. (RELATED: Legal Analyst To Depart CNN After 20 Years)
The host was known for his criticism of former President Donald Trump and conservatives on his Sunday program. In 2020, he compared the “radicalization” of Trump supporters by the “right-wing media machine” to members of ISIS. He further accused conservative media of “riot denialism” in October after former Vice President Mike Pence criticized the media for allegedly wanting to coverup President Joe Biden’s agenda by focusing on January 6.
Stelter carried weight for his former employer, Jeff Zucker, who resigned from the network in February over a relationship scandal with CNN’s former chief marketing officer, Alison Gollust. Stelter’s silence on the extramarital affair led to several insiders to call for his termination of employment.
“He is allegedly our top media reporter, yet he failed to report on the scoop that everyone in the office knew. And if he wants to say he didn’t know, he is truly terrible at his job. He’s been Jeff Zucker’s water boy for years and no one believes he didn’t know about all of this,” the source allegedly said. “He’s been sitting on his moral high horse doing Jeff’s bidding and ripping Fox and every other media outlet that Jeff tells him to while his ratings crash and burn. Where was he on the biggest story at his own network after chastising everyone else?”
The “Reliable Sources” host speculated that the resignation was due to former anchor Chris Cuomo planning to reveal “incriminating information” about the former president and Gollust.
“Cuomo was fired in December and he is not going out quietly. He was fired and there were reports that he wasn’t going to get paid the millions of dollars that were going to be on the remainder of his contract,” Stelter said. “So, as a source said to me earlier today, he was trying to burn the place down. He was going to court trying to burn the place down and claiming that he had incriminating information about Zucker and Gollust.”