Brian Stelter

In case you haven’t noticed, CNN’s Brian Stelter is obsessed with Fox News.

America’s media hall monitor, who also hosts a low rated weekend show, got triggered again last night by something said on the cable news leader. Sean Hannity decided to do a monologue on the current good news surrounding the spread of the Wuhan virus. It was branded “Americans Rising to the Occasion” on screen. Seems harmless enough, right?

Well, Stelter decided he couldn’t accept such a message of hope being spread. This was his response.

Serious Katrina vibes from Hannity tonight. After the Gulf Coast drowned, Fox went with "America's Challenge" branding, a move that many (🙋🏼‍♂️) saw as a pivot away from Bush 43's failures. Something similar happening now? pic.twitter.com/z0WtI7laNM

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 7, 2020

The phrase “seek help” comes to mind here.

Nothing Hannity is saying is bad or wrong. We have, in fact, as I covered in an article last night, seen dramatic revisions of the current projections. The doomsday scenarios are not only not playing out in places like New York, they are undershooting even the formerly most optimistic ranges of the models, which themselves already took into account the total lockdown going on. In short, Americans are succeeding in their fight against the virus with results most didn’t think were possible.

To any normal person, that would undoubtedly be cause for cautious celebration. But for Stelter, it’s cause to bring up Hurricane Katrina and President Bush because that’s obviously the political result he’s rooting for at this point.

We get it.. He's really really trying to make this happen.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 7, 2020

Stelter also falls into the “many saw” trope, which is actually just code for his own biases.

Brian unintentionally giving away the game journalists play where they say "many saw" or "many feel" but are actually referring to themselves. https://t.co/zvm2S5GVA5

— BT (@back_ttys) April 7, 2020

Trump has absolutely broken these people. We’ve now had CNN’s online publication and a CNN personality scoff at simple messages of hope during a pandemic just to snipe at the other side. It’s ridiculous and childish. It’s also evidence in the corner of those that say media members are actively rooting for things to get worse here. Partisanship and petty rivalries are taking precedent over saving lives.

If that’s not CNN’s aim, what would they be doing differently? We know the answer to that.