STELTER's got 3 yr contract @ 1M$/yr - suck it, MALONE. *Updated* OP for final show/today.

[UTUSN]

Last edited Sun Aug 21, 2022, 01:41 PM - Edit history (2)

Heard a radio wingnut yakker mocking about "lacking testosterone" - yeah, that's the ticket!1 -What bugs me is COLBERT's former producer/LICHT - what's it all about, LICHT?!

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11129007/Fired-CNN-host-Stelter-3-years-left-1M-contract-shareholder-wants-centrist-network.html

Brian's BIG payoff! Fired CNN host Stelter still has three years left on his $1M-a-year contract - as major shareholder says he wants woke network to become 'more centrist'

Fired CNN host Brian Stelter still has three years to go on his $1-million-a-year contract it was revealed Friday, as a key shareholder said he wanted the news network to return to its 'more centrist' reporting roots.

Neither Stelter nor CNN have commented on the specifics of the Reliable Sources host's contract or dismissal, but he'll almost certainly get to pocket the six-figure sum he'd have earned if the network had allowed him to stay until 2025.

Meanwhile, billionaire media mogul John Malone, who owns Liberty Media - a significant stakeholder in CNN's new parent company - told The New York Times that he had 'nothing to do with' the ouster of the 'Reliable Sources' broadcaster. ....

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ON EDIT: Update for final show/today: STELTER went out with class and plenty of zingers

He and his guests (Carl BERNSTEIN, Brian KAREM, others), while allowing that "centrism" isn't a bad word, pinpointed Drumpf and "the (Drumpf) years" about "one party" being extreme in calling the press "the enemy of the people" and lying lying lying. There was a long segment about "the future of CNN" in which there was a blunt calling out of MALONE, who was noted as saying he had nothing to do with the cancellation of Reliable Sources, but the female guest with a Brit accent called him out as being a Libertarian. In the next to last segment he had the first guest of 30 years ago as the last one, KAREM who is quite the bomb thrower, who reinforced the points made throughout. Yet throughout said that he loves CNN forever and that it will go on.

In his last segment he said "nobody knows" what he's going to say, is not edited/censored, but it was a litany of thanks to wife, children, mentors, coworkers, and I think LICHT.

Note to Stephen COLBERT: Lay some whoop and influence on your former producer, LICHT.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Karem

Brian KAREM

.... During the Gulf War, he was one of the first reporters to enter Kuwait City after its liberation.[20] During the National Drug Summit in San Antonio, Texas in 1992, Karem asked then President George H. W. Bush to comment on claims referring to the event as a "joke".[21] Karem lost his job after the incident but later gained an interview with Sam Donaldson on ABC and a mention from The Tonight Show host Jay Leno.[22] ....

While covering the Trump presidency, Karem gained attention for his interactions with administration officials. On June 27, 2017, Karem confronted then deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on "inflammatory" comments about the performance of the press while covering President Donald Trump.[29] One year later, Karem confronted Sanders again on the Administration's policy of seizing children from their parents at United States border crossings, saying "Come on, Sarah, you're a parent! Don't you have any empathy for what these people are going through? They have less than you do. Sarah, come on, seriously."[30]

On July 11, 2019, following an event at the White House Rose Garden, Karem called conservative social media representatives in attendance "a group of people eager for demonic possession." The remark prompted Sebastian Gorka, a former deputy assistant to President Trump and now a radio talk-show host, to confront Karem, yelling across the lawn: "And you're a journalist, right?" Karem replied with what some consider a taunt saying, "Come on over here and talk to me, brother. We can go outside and have a long conversation."[31] Accusing Karem of issuing a threat, Gorka walked across the lawn yelling, "You're not a journalist! You're a punk!" in front of a row of White House media and cameras.[32]

Following the July 11 incident, the White House Press Office suspended Karem's press pass on August 2, 2019.[33] Karem filed a lawsuit in response before U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Rudolph Contreras blocked the suspension.[34][35] On June 5, 2020, Judge David S. Tatel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the White House Press Office wrongly suspended Karem's press pass.[36][37] ....

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[Maraya1969]

1. So if there is no good reason for the firing does CNN own him that money?

[UTUSN]

2. It's chicken feed for them

[NJCher]

5. Easy for you to say

Try telling that to the tv ad sales people who will be pressured to make up that million plus for the next three years—as well as meet their projected sales so CNN can make their projected profit. I know because I’ve worked in that field.

If you think the tv business is just a big pool of money you go swimming in, you are wrong. It is brutally competitive.

[brooklynite]

3. Why assume CNN wasn't going to pay him in the first place?

That's what contracts are for. Plenty of TV shows get cancelled, and on-air talent get paid according to their contract terms?

[Doc Sportello]

6. Because his show regularly took on RW propaganda

And, as the article states, a wealthy RW stakeholder is pushing for more "centrist" programming - i.e. more RW propaganda he favors rather than factual reporting it has been doing. You really have jumped on this topic in diminishing this rightward move of CNN and one has to ask why? Because it's a large corporation?

[brooklynite]

9. I've taken this on?

There've been two threads about it. Both leaped to the "of course its corporate media" assumption. I offered a perfectly reasonable alternative opinion, based on the actual (low) ratings.

[Doc Sportello]

11. "Perfectly reasonable"?

Yeah. Without context that would seem reasonable. But you ignore the changes at CNN and other evidence of the network's rightward shift. Along with the fact that a large stakeholder is involved, wanting more "centrist" coverage.

Another factor you will no doubt also ignore is that a Sunday morning show covering media is NEVER going to get high ratings. The show they replace it with won't get high ratings either against the network morning shows. So your excuse for the corporate moves is also worthless. And a news network would be expected to offer such a show, if they are fulfilling the expectations of our Founding Fathers wanted from the media. That's why they backed an early mail delivery system that gave discounts to newspapers. But if you want to make it all about greed then I guess you are saying that is more important than an independent fifth estate. I choose the latter, of which Stelter was demonstrating with facts and professionalism with every show - and why he's gone.

[dchill]

4. The big money behind CNN just wants to go with...

...more unreliable sources. Maybe they'll get Howard Kurtz to come back.

[Doc Sportello]

7. Yeah Kurtz had RW connections that got him pushed out

But that was under another regime. That would be really telling if he did come back.

[Boomerproud]

17. He's with Faux isn't he? He already went to the dark side.

He showed signs of his leanings while at CNN.

[Deminpenn]

8. Licht is moving CNN back to its roots

as a news organization and away from opinion-based shows. Reliable Sources as run by Stelter didn't fit that objective. It isn't any more complicated than that.

[Doc Sportello]

12. Oh please

Less opinion? Is that why we're seeing more and more repubs repeating dump's lies on it? Is that your idea of factual news? Stelter did a lot of research using facts and experts and would point out propaganda like what happens on Faux. Believing something is simple may help you but it isn't simple, and many of us can understand how the business world, including the journalism aspect ,work in all its complicated ways.

And what happens when CNN goes to more and more RW opinion and "news" that is just both siderism that ignores facts? Oh well, they just want to make money right?

[Deminpenn]

13. It's not like CNN isn't going to have a media reporter

Oliver D'Arcy has been in that slot for awhile.

Stelter's style didn't fit the direction Licht wants to move CNN and so he was let go.

[Doc Sportello]

14. The show has been CANCELLED and the only "direction" it has to do with is rightward

It was one of CNN's highest rated Sunday news shows. Darcy isn't going to have a show. Your defense of CNN is based on what? Your opinion? Articles have said Licht wasn't happy with the move and so you are wrong. It wasn't Licht's decision. It came from higher up. Maybe you think CEOs and billionaires have our best interests at heart. I pointed out they are still going to have opinions. It's just going to be more RW opinions based on falsehoods. And less holding the feet of powerful interests to the fire. I prefer that over glib excuses for more corporate and RW dominance of the media.

[Tommymac]

15. Tell 'em Doc. Bravo!

There is a reason I have called that network C(0)NN since Ted sold it.

They are just a big ZERO to me. Pretend to be Centrist, but spin everything rightward. Been their formula for over 20 years.

Things were looking better once that pompous little man Wolf Blitzer was relegated to the basement, but I see that once again C(0)NN is going to bow to the corporate and rethuglican pressure.

[Doc Sportello]

16. I believe there are some solid journalists still there

Such as Briana Keilar and Jim Sciutto. We'll see how that goes. But I see that lie spreader Dan Crenshaw is on with Tapper this morning, which seems very much like a trend. I'm not hopeful.

And thanks for the compliment.

[Deminpenn]

20. Believe what you want

I'll leave it at that

[Doc Sportello]

23. Just as I thought

I provided facts while all you got is opinion, acting as if they are facts.
Pooh-poohing the shift at CNN is the same kind of attitude some took about Faux and other media as the RW and fascists surged in this country. That approach hasn't worked out so well.

[Wounded Bear]

10. I can handle "centrist." It's the "bothsider" bullshit that annoys me...

[IcyPeas]

18. what are they replacing his show with?

[UTUSN]

19. Don't know, but have seen news bits that there will be "media segments" on other CNN shows

And LICHT told the CNN staff there will be MORE change that they "might not understand"?!1

I'm not understanding COLBERT's former producer/LICHT.

[Kid Berwyn]

21. Shows how valuable his Show was.

We the People are the poorer for it getting canned. Stelter was the one guy on cable TV keeping Rupert Murdoch and his NAZI swarm honest. Can’t think of anyone on broadcast TV that does that, at all.

[UTUSN]

22. *HAH*! - MALONE's ideas of "Centrist" are Bret BAIER and Brit HUME!1

I would be rubbed wrong all the time that Brit HUME was at ABC as (White House correspondent?), during the Poppy BUSH and CLINTON presidencies, when he diminished anything Democratic and then openly acted as the BUSH Family Evil Empire consigliere, a de facto family member with entry to family social functions. Then at Faux he would mock Dan RATHER's sign-off of "Courage" with his "Unafraid" and verbally assault Juan WILLIAMS every Sunday like out of Django Unchained.

As for BAIER, he acted like Darth RUMSFELD's favorite kid for fawning interviews. Yeah, those two are "Centrist" to MALONE.


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https://www.mediaite.com/tv/is-john-malone-responsible-for-axing-your-show-brian-stelter-guest-addresses-the-elephant-in-the-room-during-cnns-reliable-sources-swan-song/

‘Is John Malone Responsible for Axing Your Show?’ Brian Stelter Guest Addresses the Elephant in the Room During CNN’s Reliable Sources Swan Song

.... During the show’s last-ever panel discussion on Sunday, Claire Atkinson — chief media correspondent for Insider — referenced John Malone, a prominent shareholder of CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, during a discussion about the future of the network. Malone denied being directly involved in the cancellation of host Brian Stelter’s show, but has been open about his desire to see CNN become more centrist. (“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists,” Malone said last year, citing Fox News’ Bret Baier and Brit Hume as positive examples.)

In the first half of the broadcast, Stelter and his guests mostly danced around the subject of Malone and Warner Brothers Discovery leadership. But Atkinson broached the topic head on.

“I think that’s a good question that people are asking: Is John Malone responsible for axing your show?” Atkinson said. “I don’t know the answer to that. I think people might suspect it’s political. He’s a libertarian who believes in not paying taxes if he can avoid it … He said he’s not directly not involved. That’s an interesting quote. But then, I think he’s a businessman. He’s looking at where the money is, where the audience is. And the viewership on the left is split between CNN and MSNBC, and the viewership on the right is all at Fox News. They have a bigger audience, lots of money, and perhaps he’s saying, ‘You know what, if we shift a little bit this way, maybe we’ll get that, too.'”

“There definitely will be more change,” Stelter added.

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