BREAKING: CNN rehires Brian Stelter as ‘chief media analyst’

Brian Stelter is making a return to CNN and his Reliable Sources newsletter. An email to subscribers of that newsletter revealed that Stelter will be coming back to helm the publication on September 9, just one day before the first and perhaps only presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and President Donald Trump.

“But this is not going to be a ‘Back to the Future’ remake,” Stelter told readers. “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.”

He will also be a chief media analyst for CNN, which he said, per Variety, “means I’ll be appearing on air, developing digital content, and helming this newsletter. It will be different, because I am different.”

“I always scoffed at people who said ‘getting fired was the best thing that’s ever happened to me’ — until, well, it happened to me,” Stelter said.

Stelter founded Reliable Sources in 2015 but the television program was cancelled in 2022 and Stelter left the network. Oliver Darcy, who took over the newsletter after Stelter left, left himself in August to start his own newsletter called Status. Stelter was let go under the leadership of Chris Licht, who took over for Jeff Zucker after he was removed from his position, but then was himself removed and replaced by Mark Thompson, who previously worked with The New York Times as well as the BBC.