Political analyst Mark Halperin accused CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter of “journalistic corruption” on Thursday over his promotion of CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s upcoming book on former President Joe Biden’s decline.
Stelter wrote Wednesday and Thursday newsletters about the book, “Original Sin,” in which he defended Tapper from conservative allegations of participating in a cover-up, and highlighted the authors’ commitment to fact-checking. Halperin, on “Next Up with Mark Halperin,” said Stelter is not executing his role as a media reporter to “hold the media accountable.”
“You’ve got at CNN this guy Brian Stelter, who’s their media reporter, who’s an ally of Jake Tapper, to protect Tapper’s image, to enhance Tapper’s image,” Halperin said. “He’s got a media newsletter. He’s supposed to cover the media. Guy doesn’t write about the biggest failure in the history of American media. Instead, he writes about how great Tapper’s book is.”
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“And today in his newsletter — guy’s a fan of irony — he writes about how it was so important for Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson to have the truth in their book, the full truth, that they hired the head of the New Yorker’s fact-checking department to fact-check their book,” he continued. “Okay, again, the job of a media reporter, I would think, is not to protect and promote his colleague. And this is no innocent here, Brian Stelter.”
Halperin then noted Stelter’s record of dismissing concerns about Biden’s decline.
“In addition to promoting and protecting Jake Tapper, Brian Stelter has been, over the course of the entire Biden presidency, one of the biggest critics of those on the right and those few people like me in the independent media who have tried to hold Joe Biden accountable,” he said. “He’s accused us of, you know, being propagandists, of celebrating cheap fakes and deep fakes. I don’t understand someone whose job it is to hold the media accountable, to not hold not just his own network but every news organization in the country, who now, it’s clear, participated in a cover-up, some because of threats, some because of a desire to help Joe Biden win. Massive cover-up.”
“And instead of pointing out the flaws in the book, he writes favorable — he cites the favorable reviews the book has gotten from news organizations like The Washington Post and The New York Times, who participated in the cover-up and whose failure was manifest,” he continued. “He cites the favorable reviews, and then the Twitter account for the book tweets out Brian Stelter’s citations. It’s just — it’s nothing short of journalistic corruption. And it’s missing the moment.”
In addition to reposting a section of Stelter’s newsletter on the book’s fact-checking process, the @OriginalSinBook account also shared his post quoting and linking to a review of the book by The New York Times.
“NYT book review: @jaketapper and @AlexThomp ‘s ‘Original Sin’ is ‘a damning, step-by-step account of how the people closest to a stubborn, aging president enabled his quixotic resolve to run for a second term,’ Stelter’s post reads.
On Tuesday’s episode of “Next Up with Mark Halperin,” Halperin also dismantled the premise that Tapper was one of the journalists who dug into Biden’s cognitive decline prior to his disastrous June debate.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
