It’s kind of touching that there is at least one person left who believes that CNN practices objective journalism.  The fact that he draws a paycheck from the network may have something to do with his opinion, but I suspect that it is utterly sincere, which is much, much worse.

Brian Stelter, the 31-year-old host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, a weekly show devoted to the media, is oblivious to reality outside the blue bubble, in which he has apparently lived his entire life.  (His work experience following graduation as a communications major at Towson University is limited to the New York Times and CNN.)  How else could he utter a statement that would spark gales of laughter from a large majority of Americans, if polling on the approval ratings of journalists?  Watch as he fills some airtime for his employer, talking to Carol Costello (transcript below):

Transcript via Grabien:

COSTELLO: “Even if the White House press can stay in the west wing, journalists are concerned about transparency with the incoming White House. As ‘Washington Post’ columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote, quote, ‘Journalists are in the fight for their lives. And they’re going to have to be better than ever before, just to do their jobs.’ CNN senior media correspondent and host of ‘Reliable sources,’ Brian Stelter joins us with more on this. So, do you believe Sean Spicer?” 
STELTER: “So, that is the big debate among the White House Correspondents’ Association now. I spoke with both, Spicer and the other side, the head of the association last night, Jeff Mason. These two man had a two hour-long meeting yesterday. Because this ‘Esquire’ story started all this over the weekend, and that ‘Esquire’ story saying that the press could be evicted from the White House altogether. Sean Spicer saying no, that’s not true, but as he confirmed there at the interview this morning, he’s thinking about moving the briefings to a bigger room, more spacious room where there could be more journalists. Two things about that that stand out. Number one, there’s nothing like the briefing room in the West Wing; 49 seats, room for some more people in the back, steps from the Oval Office. There’s something special about that in the access and the symbolism it all represents. Number two, the Trump administration is going to try to bring in more friendly voices to these briefings, try to stack the room with clearly pro-Trump journalists as opposed to objective journalists like people here at CNN, and that can be troubling. And then the broader issue here Carol, is there’s a concern about a slippery slope. This is what White House correspondents are saying privately. They’re worried that, OK, today it’s about moving the briefing room, but next year it might be moving the workspace out of the West Wing. You know, CNN has that tiny booth in the basement of the West Wing —“
COSTELLO: “Yeah.”
STELTER: “— where the pool used to be, where we can work during the day. Fox and all the other news outlets have that as well. So the concern is right now, it’s about the briefings but could there be a slippery slope here where Spicer and Trump try to take away more access over time.” 
COSTELLO: “Clearly the president-elect wants to stay on his message.” 
STELTER: “And keep journalists on their back and seem to be in control.” 
COSTELLO: “And he’s not shy about speaking out about things he doesn’t like, as he did with ‘SNL’ again.” 
STELTER: “I waited all day Sunday wondering if he was going to weigh in on ‘Saturday Night Live.’ He said, NBC news is bad but “Snl” is the worst of NBC, always a complete hit job, really bad television. Here is what the TV critic in chief may not have liked.”
[clip starts]
BALDWIN (as Trump): “Thank you for coming. I would like to start by answering the question that’s on everybody’s mind. Yes, this is real life. This is really happening. (Laughter) On January 20th, I, Donald J. Trump, will become the 45th president of the United States. And then two months later, Mike Pence will become the 46th.”
SPICER: “What ‘Saturday Night Live’ did last night was disappointing. It was not funny. It was mean spirited. It’s gone from being a show you could sit back and get a good laugh out of to being, frankly, bad television.”
[clip ends] 
STELTER: “A lot of folks worry about trump and his aides not respecting dissent, not being able to handle criticism. The silver lining of his tweets, he’s about to hit 20 million followers on Twitter, is that we always know what the president-elect is thinking.” 
COSTELLO: “That’s true. In that ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit, my senior producer who is a brilliant producer, did you notice on Alec Baldwin’s lapel, instead of the American flag it had the Russian flag?” 
STELTER: “I did not notice that. I had not seen that.” 
COSTELLO: “That’s hard core, right? I wish I had thought of that earlier, then we could have zoomed into it. That’s not the American flag.” 
STELTER: “I bet the president-elect noticed.” 
COSTELO: “I bet he did too. We’ll see if he tweets about that. Brian Stelter, many thanks.”