Brian Stelter returning to CNN as chief media analyst

Brian Stelter is heading back to CNN to lead its coverage of the media, the longtime press correspondent and commentator announced on Tuesday.

Stelter’s return is a surprise move that comes more than two years after he left CNN following the network’s canceling of his weekly Sunday media affairs program “Reliable Sources.”

In his new role as “Chief Media Analyst,” Stelter will appear on CNN’s air, develop digital content and helm its flagship media newsletter, also dubbed “Reliable Sources,” which he helped found in 2015.

“It will be different, because I am different,” Stelter wrote to the newsletter’s subscribers on Tuesday. “But this is not going to be a ‘Back to the Future’ remake. 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 fills a vacancy leading the widely-read media newsletter left by Oliver Darcy, who departed CNN last month to launch a media newsletter project of his own.

“I’m rooting for Oliver and, as I have told him personally, I think we’re going to complement each other wonderfully,” Stelter wrote.

Amid a slew of changes to the network’s programming and personnel by then-president Chris Licht, CNN canceled its long-running “Reliable Sources” Sunday program, which Stelter hosted for years, late in the summer of 2022.

Before joining CNN, Stelter served as a media reporter for The New York Times after getting his start blogging about the television news industry while still a student in college.

His first edition leading the “Reliable Sources” newsletter will publish on Sept. 9.