Stelter challenged by student as The Atlantic writer dismisses Hunter story
Media critic Joe Concha and author Douglas Murray join 'Hannity' with reaction and analysis.
CNN host Brian Stelter invited The Atlantic journalist Anne Applebaum onto his "Reliable Sources" show Sunday, but refrained from asking his guest about her controversial comments dismissing of the Hunter Biden laptop story, during a "Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy" conference this past week at the University of Chicago.
At this event, Applebaum was asked by college freshman and Chicago Thinker journalist Daniel Schmidt about the media's culpability in refusing to cover the laptop story when it first broke, weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Applebaum asserted Hunter Biden's controversial business relationships didn't have anything to do with the presidential race, and she "didn't find it to be interesting."
(Fox News)
"Do you think the media acted inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation and what can be learned from that in ensuring that what we label as disinformation is truly disinformation and not reality?" Schmidt asked.
"My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is, I think, totally irrelevant. I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation," Applebaum responded. "I mean, I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States. So, I don’t find it to be interesting. I mean, that would be my problem with that as a major news story."
Stelter himself was also confronted by another University of Chicago freshman and journalist from The Chicago Thinker, Christopher Phillips, over CNN pushing misinformation and covering up the Hunter Biden laptop story.
"They push the Russian collusion hoax, they push the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smear Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist, and they also smeared Nick Sandmann as a White supremacist. And yes, they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation," Phillips said.
The student accused journalists of being little more "than apologists and cheerleaders" for President Biden, before asking,why "all the mistakes of the mainstream media and CNN, in particular, seem to magically all go in one direction."
Stelter dismissed the student’s scathing question, calling his charges "a popular right-wing narrative about CNN."
CNN "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter speaks on the "Trust, Truth and the Future of Journalism" panel at the Media Literacy Week kickoff event in Manhattan, Nov. 6, 2017. (Reuters/Andrew Kelly)
In order to "protect democracy," the CNN host said journalists must '"admit it" when they "screw up."
However, that isn’t what CNN or Stelter has done. In October 2020, the CNN host dismissed the story to his audience, as a possibly "made up," "manufactured" and a "right-wing media" smear of Biden. But when asked about the media’s treatment of the laptop story at this disinformation conference, he claimed, critics "don't know how newsrooms work."
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In his hour-long CNN show Sunday, Stelter did not address Applebaum, or his controversial moments from the conference.
The mainstream media at large self-censored the Hunter Biden laptop story from being made known to the public as well, heading into the 2020 presidential election. Leaked Project Veritas videos revealed CNN’s top leadership had admitted in conference calls that they would not be covering the story, and even mocked reporters who had shared The New York Post’s reports in the weeks leading up to the election.