Stelter Fires At Surgeon General…Twitter Fires Back

Dan Montanaro | March 16, 2020
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CNN’s Brian Stelter is up to his old tricks again. This time, his target of choice was U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams. In CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter, Stelter leveled his aim at Adams for his criticism of the media during a press conference on Saturday.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said, “I want you all to understand some straight talk from the nation’s doctor: We really need you all to lean into and prioritize the health and safety of the American people,” said Adams. “No more bickering, no more partisanship, no more criticism or finger pointing. There’ll be plenty of time for that."

Stelter made the time.

“What Adams called ‘bickering’ and ‘criticism’ is what most of us call accountability,” Stelter wrote. “Is there value in focusing on the future? Yes, but when Adams said he wants ‘less stories looking at what happened in the past,’ I hear him saying ‘stop exposing the Trump administration’s failures.’ There is value in all of the coverage. And government officials don’t get to decide that — readers and reporters and whistleblowers and editors do.”

Stelter went on to give his opinion of what he believed Adams’ role in all of this is, saying “Adams used the word ‘need’ talking to the press corps. So I will too. He needs to spend his time educating the public about how to protect each other, not lecturing the press about what’s newsworthy.”

Of course, as is most often the case, Stelter’s critics on Twitter were more than happy to fire back in defense of the Surgeon General, and to inform Stelter of his own hypocrisy.

“Brian here don’t realize that it’s infinitely harder to educate the public on how to protect each other when organizations like CNN focus their coverage on orange man bad finger-pointing to score political points.” Wrote one user.

Highlighting Stelter’s apparently contradictory sentiments, another user asked, “Uh so you can lecture him how to do his job but he can’t lecture you how to do yours … why, exactly?”

 

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