Justice Brett Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation coverage had a CNN anchor suggesting the media has damaged itself seeking to corroborate sexual assault claims against the judge.
"They tried to verify her claims, they couldn't," CNN's "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter said Sunday. "This is another example of . . . in a prior generation, maybe the interview wouldn't have aired at all."
Stelter was questioning a panel that included New York Magazine's Olivia Nuzzi, ex-CNN anchor Frank Sesno, and White House reporter and CNN analyst April Ryan, a frequent antagonizer of the Trump administration.
"I have to ask this question: Has the news media come out of this controversy looking better or worse?" Stelter asked. "Because I'm pretty sure we don't look better."
While Nuzzi and Ryan mostly defended the media, Sesno was less complimentary after Stelter called out the press for creating the Kavanaugh controversy and failing to fairly report on it.
"This controversy involving Kavanaugh only occurred because of the press, because of The Washington Post story [about Christine Blasey] Ford, The New Yorker story about Deborah Ramirez," Stelter said. "There's been so much reporting and frankly, Frank Sesno, some misreporting.
"Do you think the press is coming out of this looking weaker because many people feel that the press chose a side through this?"
Sesno responded "yes," before admitting "the coverage has been unrelentingly negative."
"Certainly that's the way it's going to look to Trump supporters and to people who have been questioning media's bias and their ability to report straight for a long time," Sesno told Stelter.
". . . what the public and the White House come away from this is some fair territory to wag their finger and say, 'I told you so.'
"Even Joe Scarborough goes on the air and says the mainstream media were unfair toward the president. I think the challenge grows even greater for the media to figure out where it's going and to try to find some balance in all of this."
© 2023 Newsmax. All rights reserved.