Brian Stelter was back on CNN Sunday night — and may be again in the coming weeks — but reliable sources tell us it’s only a temporary glitch.
Stelter was one of several prominent heads of “The Murdoch: Empire of Influence,” the long-produced documentary about the media mogul behind CNN’s Fox News that aired its first two episodes on Sunday. Originally produced as an original miniseries for the doomed CNN+, Stelter’s involvement was definitively discontinued several months before he was fired from CNN and “Trusted Source” was cancelled.
Though Stelter had been in an open, ongoing public feud with Murdoch for years at Murdoch’s Fox News, his brief contribution to “Empire of Influence” was surprisingly similar—plausible, even?
“Rupert Murdoch made it easier to see himself, to see the conflicts inherent in America,” go on to Stelter’s first comment to the cameras. “The struggle over caste and class and the centre, the struggle over the nature of the democratic system.”
By no means is this an endorsement, but it’s hardly the kind of stinging rebuke you might expect Stelter to lobbied for the Fox News host during his “trusted source” days.
Although he doesn’t have a major part in either episode, Stelter has this to say in the teaser segment of the upcoming installment: “Politicians sucking up Rupert Murdoch decade“(emphasized furiously).
And the way “Empire of Influence” is unfolding so far, it actually sounds pretty believable.