CNN’s left-wing media correspondent Brian Stelter barely made any mention of the so-called “disinformation” conference he previously hyped throughout the week on Sunday’s installment of “Reliable Sources.”

Stelter was among the high-profile speakers at the “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference co-hosted by The Atlantic magazine and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. 

On his daily CNN+ program, Stelter called the event “major” meant to tackle the “malicious” issue of “disinformation. 

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“It’s intended to circumvent the truth. We’re seeing this from bad-faith actors, including autocracies around the world and democracies are under assault as a result,” Stelter told CNN+ subscribers on Wednesday. “That’s why a conference is starting today in Chicago to examine the organized spread of disinformation and the best strategies to respond.”

He then interviewed David Axelrod, the director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and a CNN contributor, to discuss the event, which he emceed. 

David Axelrod, director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and CNN contributor.
(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

On Thursday’s installment of “Reliable Sources Daily,” Stelter highlighted remarks made at the conference by Barack Obama, but avoided the backlash the former president received for what critics call his “revisionist” history of how his administration handled Russia. 

Stelter himself appeared at the conference for a panel discussion, where he defended the media’s handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election. 

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“I think there’s a tension between big American newsrooms that want to check something out themselves that don’t want to rely on other outlets, that don’t want to just repeat and regurgitate, but then there’s an audience expectation of being able to instantly cover every story and have every answer,” Stelter said on Thursday. “And so in September or October of 2020, when the New York Post has something, other outlets can’t match it, there’s this pressure- ‘Why aren’t you confirming this? Why aren’t you focusing on this? Why aren’t you leading on this?’ Because we haven’t matched it, we haven’t confirmed it.”

“Now lately, the [New York] Times and the [Washington] Post have and that’s notable, and CNN had a story last week about the federal investigation into Hunter, but I think there’s this tension between fast and slow journalism, perhaps, between people who know how newsrooms work and the vast majority of those who don’t.”

The New York Times and The Washington Post both verified Hunter Biden’s laptop after dismissing the New York Post’s bombshell reporting during the 2020 presidential election.
(Getty images  |  New York Post)

However, Stelter went viral when he was confronted by a college freshman at the University of Chicago over CNN’s role in being a “purveyor of disinformation.”

“They push the Russian collusion hoax, they push the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smear Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist, and they also smeared Nick Sandmann as a White supremacist. And yes, they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation,” Christopher Phillips told Stelter. “With mainstream corporate journalists becoming little more than apologists and cheerleaders for the regime, is it time to finally declare that the canon of journalistic ethics is dead or no longer operative?”

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Phillips continued, “All the mistakes of the mainstream media and CNN, in particular, seem to magically all go in one direction. Are we expected to believe that this is all just some sort of random coincidence or is there something else behind it?”

Stelter initially responded by nervously quipping, “It’s time for lunch.”

“There’s a clock that says 30 seconds, but I think my honest answer to you, and I will come over and talk in more detail after this… I understand that that is a popular right-wing narrative about CNN,” Stelter said. “I think it’s important, when talking about shared reality and democracy, all these networks all these news outlets have to defend democracy. And when they screw up, admit it.”

Stelter continued avoiding Phillips’ line of questioning by pivoting to CNN assisting Fox News in Ukraine following the deadly attack on the Fox News team last month, showing how news outlets “work together,” which is something Stelter said, “we don’t talk about it enough.”

“And with regards to the regime, I think you mean President Biden? The last time I spoke with a Biden aide, we yelled at each other. So that’s the reality of the news business, that people don’t see, that people don’t hear,” Stelter said. “They imagine that it’s a situation that simply is not. But I think your question, it speaks to the failure of journalism to show our work and show the reality of how our profession operates. We have a lot of work to do, I think.”

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The CNN host was panned on social media for being “schooled” by the college freshman while failing to fully address his questions. 

CNN host Brian Stelter.
(David Becker/Getty Images)

On Sunday’s “Reliable Sources,” one of Stelter’s guests was Atlantic staff writer and fellow conference speaker Anne Applebaum, who faced heavy criticism herself for saying she didn’t find the Hunter Biden scandal “interesting” during the 2020 election. 

“My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is, I think, totally irrelevant. I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation,” Applebaum said at the conference. “I mean, I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be President of the United States. So, I don’t find it to be interesting. I mean, that would be my problem with that as a major news story.”

Stelter avoided pressing her on the controversial comments. 

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The subject of the “disinformation” conference by and large was brushed under the rug on “Reliable Sources,” a media-centric program purportedly meant to recap the biggest media stories of the week. 

The only mention of the conference was a brief mention of Obama’s remarks during a segment unrelated to the conference itself.