CNN media reporter Brian Stelter offered an uncommon note of praise Thursday for his network’s longtime rival, Fox News.
Stelter credited the conservative cable channel with standing alongside CNN, MS NOW and Politico during the past several days as the Trump administration barred the outlets from the White House.
He made the comments on air with Dana Bash after all three organizations reported that they had regained access to the White House earlier Thursday afternoon.
A federal judge ordered the White House to restore the outlets’ access Thursday morning.
Bash initially pointed out that Fox, NBC, ABC and CBS had each declined to participate in the president’s press pool coverage since Monday.
“It is so important to underscore the solidarity that the other networks—and even beyond the television networks—other news organizations have shown with CNN and Politico and MS NOW because everybody understands the stakes,” Bash said.
She said the dispute extended well beyond rivalries within the news business. “It’s about the free press writ large,” Bash added.
Stelter then singled out Fox News, the most right-leaning of the major networks, for its support.
CNN reporter Brian Stelter gave rare credit to longtime rival Fox News for supporting CNN, MS NOW and Politico during Donald Trump’s White House press ban
A federal judge ordered the White House to restore the outlets’ access Thursday morning. By noon, all three were permitted back inside, prompting Stelter and Dana Bash to discuss the development live on Inside Politics
He emphasized that the confrontation had crossed traditional party lines.
“Fox News has been a real ally of CNN and the other major networks this week. And frankly, Dana, I think that’s partly because Fox… it’s thinking about the past and [Barack] Obama.”
During his first term, Obama attempted in 2009 to exclude Major Garrett, then one of the cable network’s prominent journalists, from a multipool interview. The effort failed after ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC protested.
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A joint statement issued by those same outlets this time declared: “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
Stelter told Bash that Fox was likely also considering “what happens when a Democrat is back in the Oval Office, and whether some Democrat would pull a stunt like this.”
“And then again more broadly, what are we going through in America?” Stelter continued. He described the nearly weeklong exclusion as one of several recent “examples of democratic backsliding.”
“Yes, this is a democracy, but there are times it’s been a healthier democracy.
“Backsliding is real, and scholars who study autocratic behavior say they see it happening every day, coming out 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Both journalists praised the conservative network for joining a show of solidarity against a Republican president
Fox News chief White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich also criticized Trump’s decision in her role as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association on Saturday.
Reporters had just been turned away from the White House, confirming their credentials had been revoked. Trump announced the ban in a Truth Social post the day before.
‘Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment.
‘The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future,’ Heinrich wrote, calling on the administration ‘to immediately restore’ their access.
Bash, on Thursday, also personally thanked Fox DC Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton, who chairs the television pool that effectively boycotted the ban and sent the email announcing it would stop such coverage.
‘I personally say thank you to him,’ Bash said, framing his actions as ‘a profile in courage and doing what is right.’