On Mar. 7, CNN star Brian Stetler went on the attack against rival media outlet Sinclair Broadcasting, ripping their recent promotion as fake news that echoed “President Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric.”
Sinclair fired back at Stelter on Tuesday. They called the CNN anchor hypocritical and dishonest, and dug up humiliating footage of him from 2016 and 2017 to prove their point.
Set to dramatic music, the 4 minute video contains clips of Stetler and his CNN colleagues saying the exact thing they claimed Sinclair was using to push “inflammatory rhetoric.”
“The following is evidence of a major media company’s dishonesty and hypocrisy” their video says before stringing together clips that make CNN — and Stetler specifically — look foolish.
The video is stunning —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APrAMKM77z4
Indeed, there’s a growing amount of mistrust for the mainstream media by everyday Americans.
“More than 3-in-4 Americans believe that traditional major TV and newspaper media outlets report ‘fake news,’ including 31% who believe this happens regularly and 46% who say it happens occasionally. The 77% who believe fake news reporting happens at least occasionally has increased significantly from 63% of the public who felt that way last year,” a Monmouth University poll recently found.
1-in-4 Americans “say the term ‘fake news’ applies only to stories where the facts are wrong. Most Americans (65%), on the other hand, say that ‘fake news’ also applies to how news outlets make editorial decisions about what they choose to report,” the poll concluded. The poll was cited by Sinclair Broadcasting in their video.
Stetler responded to the video on Twitter, saying, “There’s a huge difference between my coverage and Sinclair’s mandatory promos. No one tells me what to say. But these anchors were told exactly what to say.” He also shared a blog post whose author called Sinclair’s attack “bananas.”
However, critics have pointed out that Stetler has been surrounded by controversy over editorializing for years. Earlier in March, The Horn News reported that Stetler was caught on video admitting that he selectively presents facts — and won’t stop guests he agrees with from lying — during his broadcast.
The Horn News also reported that Stetler defended CNN’s mistruths after a colleague at the news giant was caught fabricating facts regarding Trump.
— The Horn News editorial team