A ‘Naive’ Brian Stelter Thought He Was Going on Dates With a Fox News Staffer

By Chris Ariens 

CNN’s Brian Stelter and CNN contributor Bill Carter, both former New York Times media reporters, were on New Day this morning delving deeper into Gabe Sherman‘s reporting about a so-called “black room” former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes reportedly set up to keep tabs on reporters and other perceived threats. Sherman reports:

Ailes was also able to use portions of the Fox budget to hire consultants, political operatives, and private detectives who reported only to him, according to a senior Fox source. Last week, according to the source, Fox News dismissed five consultants whom Ailes had hired to do work that was more about advancing his own agenda than Fox’s.

Well this morning, Stelter recounted his own run-ins with the Fox News PR machine, when he was the editor of TVNewser.

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“About ten years ago I had a crush on a woman at Fox News. She was a low-level staffer. I was in college at the time. I was going out on what I thought were dates. These were not dates. She was reporting back to Fox News about me about what I thought of her and CNN and MSNBC and Fox. Because I was a reporter on the beat. They were spying on me. I didn’t think that was a big deal at the time. Now we know they were actually sending out private investigators. They were tailing other reporters.”

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