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CNN's chief media analyst Brian Stelter was called out Thursday for promoting his colleague Jake Tapper's book about the cover-up of former President Joe Biden's cognitive decline after ignoring the story himself.
On "Next Up with Mark Halperin," the eponymous host said Stelter was working to enhance and protect Tapper’s image instead of doing his purported job of scrutinizing the media.
"[Stelter]'s got a media newsletter. He's supposed to cover the media. Guy doesn't write about the biggest failure in the history of American media," Halperin said. "Instead, he writes about how great Tapper's book is, and today in his newsletter - the guy is a fan of irony - he writes about how it was so important for Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson to have the truth in their book the full truth that they hired the head of The New Yorker's fact-checking department to fact-check their book."
"Again, the job of a media reporter, I would think, is not to protect and promote his colleague," Halperin added.
Analyst and author Mark Halperin shared harsh words about Brian Stelter's job as a media reporter at CNN. (Next Up with Mark Halperin YouTube channel/MK)
Halperin drew a contrast between how Stelter maligned Biden critics as partisan apologists while taking part in the very same cover-up that blighted the media landscape.
"Brian Stelter has been, over the course of the entire Biden presidency, one of the biggest critics of those on the right and those few people like me in the independent media who have tried to hold Joe Biden accountable," Halperin said. "He's accused us of, you know, being propagandists, of celebrating cheap fakes and deepfakes."
"I don't understand someone whose job it is to hold the media accountable, to not hold, not just his own network, but every news organization in the country who, now it's clear, participated in a cover-up. Some because of threats, some because of a desire to help Joe Biden win," he added. "Massive cover-up."
While promoting his book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," set to be released next week, Tapper admitted his failure to sufficiently report on Biden’s health concerns.
Halperin condemned Brian Stelter, arguing he failed to report on one of the biggest media scandals in American history. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for TIME)
Rather than pointing out the flaws in the book, Halperin noted how, in his newsletter, Stelter cited "favorable reviews the book has gotten from news organizations like the Washington Post and The New York Times, who participated in the cover-up and whose failure was manifest."
"He cites the favorable reviews and then the Twitter account for the book tweets out Brian Stelter's citations. It's nothing short of journalistic corruption and it's missing the moment," Halperin said.
He said the time is now for not only the Democratic Party to reckon with how it hid the truth during the election, but also the media.
"The moment now for the Democratic Party is to acknowledge that, of course, we all saw with our own eyes, not in private meetings, on C-SPAN, the private - the public manifestations of Joe Biden's decline," Halperin said.
Biden's debate against Trump in 2024 opened the floodgates to criticisms over his mental acuity. ((Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) | (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images))
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"We all watched as the media - not the conservative media but what I call the ‘dominant media’ - simply pretend it wasn't happening, attack those who pointed it out, and now everybody in the media say, ‘Well, we don't need to acknowledge our own failure, we'll just say Joe Biden shouldn't have run and like Chuck Schumer should have called him out,’" Halperin said.
"It's a big failure, and it's missing the moment," he concluded.
Fox News Digital reached out to Stelter and Tapper via CNN for comment.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
Alexander Hall is an associate editor for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected].
