CNN: Brian Stelter Is Back

Brian Stelter is back at CNN to lead its coverage of the media, the longtime press correspondent and commentator announced on Tuesday.

The Hill reports Stelter’s return is a surprise move that comes more than two years after he left CNN following the network’s canceling of his weekly Sunday media affairs program “Reliable Sources.”

In his new role as “Chief Media Analyst,” Stelter will appear on CNN’s air, develop digital content and helm its flagship media newsletter, also dubbed “Reliable Sources,” which he helped found in 2015.

“It will be different, because I am different,” Stelter wrote to the newsletter’s subscribers on Tuesday. “But this is not going to be a ‘Back to the Future’ remake. The media industry has matured, CNN has evolved, and I have changed a lot since I signed off two years ago. I loved my old life as the anchor of a Sunday morning show but, to borrow some lingo from my video game blogger days, I finished that level of the game. Time for new levels, new challenges.”

The network’s Sunday morning round table of media criticism that he had hosted, also called “Reliable Sources,” will not return. 

Stelter fills a vacancy leading the widely-read media newsletter left by Oliver Darcy, who departed CNN last month to launch a media newsletter project of his own.