New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter will host an upcoming edition of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” The Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple reports. As CNN looks for a permanent replacement for Howard Kurtz, who recently joined Fox News, Stelter will host August 11. In the meantime, he will avoid covering CNN, as well as Fox News and MSNBC.
Wemple speculates on what the guest-hosting gig might mean for Stelter:
Whatever the outcome of Stelter’s tryout, it’s unlikely to advance the story of the New York Times’s brain drain to television outlets. Earlier this year, the paper lost reporters Jeff Zeleny and Susan Saulny to ABC News and just last week lost statistician Nate Silver to ESPN-cum-ABC News. That’s not a trajectory for Stelter. “I would not leave the Times for a television job,” says Stelter. Perhaps that wouldn’t be an issue: Over his time hosting “Reliable Sources,” Kurtz held down full-time work covering the media and Washington, first at The Post and later at the Daily Beast/Newsweek, and contributed to the Daily Download. Over the years, he occasionally drew fire from critics for conflicts of interest stemming from his various loyalties.
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This week’s guest host of “Reliable Sources” will be former CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno, who currently works as director of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs.
Stelter is the author of “Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV.” In a MediaBeat interview earlier this year, we asked him if he’d be interested in hosting his own media criticism show. Watch his answer after the jump.