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Columnist to CNN’s Stelter: You’re becoming ‘quite a ridiculous figure’

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USA Today and Hollywood Reporter columnist Michael Wolff slammed CNN’s Brian Stelter on his media affairs program Sunday, telling the host he was becoming “quite a ridiculous figure.”

The critique came as the conversation turned to a recent Newsweek column in which Wolff accused Stelter of delivering “a pious sermon about [Donald] Trump’s perfidiousness and nursing personal grudges.”

The 31-year-old “Reliable Sources” host asked Wolff if his style or substance was wrong in attempting to “fact-check the president.”

{mosads}”I think it is, and I mean this with truly no disrespect, but I think you can border on being sort of quite a ridiculous figure. It is not a good look, to repeatedly and self-righteously defend your own self-interest. The media should not be the story every week.”

“Every week in this religious sense, you make it the story,” Wolff added. “We are not the story.”

“Isn’t there room for one hour a week on CNN for this?” Stelter asked.

“Listen, I love your show, but I wish every weekend you did not turn to the camera and lecture America about the virtues of the media and everyone trying to attack it. The media will be fine,” Wolff  replied.

“The media doesn’t need defending?” Stelter followed. 

“The media doesn’t need defending by the media,” Wolff responded. “The New York Times front page looks like it’s 1938 in Germany every day.”

“No it does not. Give me a break,” retorted Stelter.

Stelter is a former New York Times media reporter. He jumped to CNN in 2013 to serve as its senior media correspondent.

A nationwide Gallup poll recently found that 36 percent of respondents across 50 states think media outlets have been too hard on Trump, while 28 percent say they haven’t been hard enough.

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