Brian Stelter Returns to CNN Two Years After Network Canceled His Show

Brian Stelter is back at CNN.

In an email to subscribers of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” media newsletter, Stelter said he will be returning as the lead author of the publication that he founded in 2015. He said he will relaunch the newsletter on Sept. 9.

Under CNN’s previous leadership regime, the news network parted ways with Stelter after cancelling the TV show (also called “Reliable Sources”) in 2022. Stelter returns to pick up the mantle of “Reliable Sources” newsletter after the exit last month of Oliver Darcy, who had come aboard to work on the newsletter and was assigned to keep the newsletter moving. Darcy has launched a newsletter called “Status,” covering media, entertainment and the tech industry.

“But this is not going to be a ‘Back to the Future’ remake,” Stelter wrote in the email Tuesday. “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.”

Stelter said he’s returning to CNN in a new role as chief media analyst, “which means I’ll be appearing on air, developing digital content, and helming this newsletter. It will be different, because I am different.”

Stelter left CNN in August 2022, when the network was headed by Chris Licht, the former CBS executive whom Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav had hired to replace ousted CNN president Jeff Zucker. Licht himself was shown the door less than a year later; CNN is now headed by Mark Thompson, a former executive at the New York Times and the BBC.

“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 wrote.

After he left CNN in 2022, Stelter said he “changed my habits and tuned out for a bit… I experienced the news more like an everyday consumer, and in doing so, I learned a whole lot about the attention economy and the information ecosystem.” He said he was “incredibly lucky” to have time as a stay-at-home dad with his two kids, and also wrote for more than 20 publications (including a piece for Variety about MSNBC’s coverage of Joe Biden’s disaster of a debate with Donald Trump). Stelter will continue to host his podcast for Vanity Fair, “Inside the Hive,” through the end of the year.

Stelter, in his note, said he has remained an “avid reader” of “Reliable Sources” and that he “admired Oliver Darcy’s fearless reportage, as well as his decision to launch Status last month,” adding, “I’m rooting for Oliver and, as I have told him personally, I think we’re going to complement each other wonderfully.”