Helter Stelter: America’s most dangerous propagandist returns to CNN

Propaganda comes in two forms. The first manipulates the public into accepting a particular political viewpoint or persuades them to do something that benefits the ruling class. A prime example is John Legend’s Pfizer ads, which ran in 2023 and 2024, encouraging people to stay "up to date" on their COVID mRNA boosters.

The second type involves what CNN’s returning propagandist Brian Stelter routinely does — acting as an authority to vilify and demean critics of the ruling class narrative. In line with the COVID hysteria analogy, Stelter frequently targeted critics like Alex Berenson in 2021.

What is truth, and what is disinformation? That’s for the high priests like Brian Stelter to decide.

This second type of propaganda is often more dangerous than the first. It’s the kind preferred by the so-called champions of the “free press,” and Stelter excels at it. For years, Stelter has told his audience and the American people that anyone with views opposing the regime spreads mal-, mis-, and disinformation. In his esteemed opinion, the punishment for this is cancellation from public life.

After a brief period of introspection following the Discovery merger, CNN’s staff shrugged off the constraints of Chris Licht’s oppressive leadership and are once again free to embrace their bias and partisanship. Is it any wonder they’ve brought back their chief propagandist, Stelter? After all, there’s an election to win.

How did Stelter rise to become America’s most dangerous propagandist? It all started with a newsletter and a blog.

Making of a narrative guardian

Stelter grew up a media nerd. He had a strong interest in nightly news and its anchors. He turned this interest into TV Newser, a blog he started from his University of Maryland dorm room as a teenager. The blog quickly became a must-read after Stelter began breaking media stories ahead of more experienced journalists. He sold the blog but continued writing it for years.

After graduating, Stelter began working for the New York Times covering the media. His big break came in 2013 when he took over CNN’s long-running media criticism show, “Reliable Sources.”

As the 2016 election unfolded and its aftermath played out, Stelter became the most vocal cheerleader for administrative state and media narratives, wielding the power and prestige of his role as a media referee. From the debunked Russian collusion story to COVID extremism and even Hunter Biden’s laptop, no one defended the party line and attacked critics as consistently as Stelter. No one.

His unwavering commitment to protecting the establishment at all costs may give the impression that he’s comically unaware. But he isn’t. As Shakespeare said, “All the world is a stage,” and Stelter clearly knows and relishes his role on it.

Stelter’s main role is to keep mainstream media in line, ensuring that they stick to the approved narrative. He is a master at this, consistently playing the concern troll against anyone presenting alternatives to the accepted truth, even relying on figures whose credibility with the public is in ruins.

Enter Dan Rather, the disgraced former host of CBS Evening News. After Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, Stelter frequently brought Rather onto his show to discuss “truth.” In 2018, Stelter even had Rather explain how journalists needed to provide “truth” to counter “Trump’s fantasyland.” That’s right — Stelter invited the man fired from CBS for fabricating National Guard documents to speak on the importance of “truth.”

Truth doesn’t matter to Stelter. Scoring points on the opposition does.

Stelter has never hesitated to defend a regime narrative, no matter how false. When Hillary Clinton’s campaign used the Democratic Party to pay a law firm that hired an opposition research team to create a fake dossier written by a former MI-6 spy alleging “Russian collusion,” Stelter became one of its biggest defenders.

In 2020, when the media and deep state pushed the narrative that the violent riots across America’s cities were “mostly peaceful protests,” Stelter did what he does best — discredit those showing the truth. He portrayed them as extremists trying to deceive the public, like when he attacked Sean Hannity for using days-old footage to make his point.

When the media and Big Tech colluded to protect Joe Biden from allegations contained in his son’s laptop weeks before the 2020 election, Stelter and his protégé Oliver Darcy quickly came to his defense. Stelter tweeted, “'Over the past 24 hours, the Hunter Biden narrative pushed by President Trump and his allies in right-wing media has started to unravel,’ @oliverdarcy writes in the latest edition of @ReliableSources.”

Yes, the media did their job protecting the Biden family by “unraveling” the “narrative,” but they didn’t unravel the truth that the laptop and its contents were real. Stelter did what he was born to do: influence the outcome of the election for his side.

The devil in disinformation

Fast-forward to 2022. After the Discovery-Warner Brothers merger, and under pressure from libertarian board member and former Trump donor John Malone, CNN fired Stelter. This left a vacuum for the type of activist “journalism” that had become synonymous with Stelter. Left-wing activists, like Dan Froomkin at Press Watch, lamented the decision. Froomkin cried, “By firing Brian Stelter, CNN is capitulating to disinformation rather than fighting it.”

That key word appears again — disinformation. Like a talisman, it summons the supplicants of the progressive order to the holy fight. But what is truth, and what is disinformation? That’s for the high priests like Brian Stelter to decide.

After spending a little over 100 weeks in the wilderness, the prophet returned to CNN, finding a sea of shifting anti-speech norms that his past activism had laid the groundwork for.

Now in 2024, governments have ramped up their crackdowns on free speech. The U.K.’s new Labour government is emptying prisons to jail social media offenders, while Brazil has shut down access to X, formerly Twitter. Anti-speech totalitarianism that would make Big Brother proud is on the rise.

The fervor to suppress speech isn’t confined to other so-called “liberal democracies.” It’s surging here in the American republic. Just this week, former U.S. senator and perennial failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for jailing those who spread “disinformation,” First Amendment be damned.

Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation making it a crime to “knowingly distribute an ad or other election communications that contain materially deceptive content — including deepfakes.” This isn’t just about regulating or banning deepfakes, which may seem reasonable to most. But what exactly is the “materially deceptive content” Newsom refers to? Differences in how government should be run? Who gets to decide?

Brian Stelter’s unwavering dedication to protecting those who seek to amass power by limiting Americans' access to speech has brought us to this pretty pass. He has profited greatly from his role as the gatekeeper of “truth.” His actions have paved the way for ever-increasing restrictions on speech throughout the so-called free world.

So in a few years, as you stand at the gate of the gulag for posting one too many memes, remember who sent you there. Then, if they’ll let you, raise a glass of potato vodka and salute his name.