By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --"Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter insisted Sunday that he'll still be rooting for CNN even after his show was canceled this week, but stressed that it was important for the network and others to hold the media accountable.
CNN gave Stelter the chance to host a final episode of the 30-year Sunday morning program on the media even after it was learned this week that he and the show would be exiting — a gesture that's relatively rare in television.
Stelter said that it was not partisan to stand up for decency, democracy and dialogue.
"It's not partisan to stand up to demagogues," he said. "It's required. It's patriotic. We must make sure we don't give platforms to those who are lying to our faces. But we also must make sure we are representing the total spectrum of debate and representing what's going on in the country and the world."
It was Stelter's most direct reference to what is believed to be the reason for his demise; CNN hasn't talked publicly about it. Since he started this spring, new CNN chief executive Chris Licht has made clear he wants to tone down opinion, particularly as it made Republicans resistant to the network.
Stelter, who wrote a book about Fox News Channel and was frequently critical of Fox, was a lightning rod for conservatives' complaints.
Some of his final "Reliable Sources" guests were more direct. Eric Deggans, NPR television critic, said he hopes CNN will continue to give viewers context and not be reduced to false equivalency. "Just the facts" isn't enough, he said.
"Will CNN have the courage to do that?" Deggans asked. "I hope so."
Stelter, who hosted the show for nine years, also had Watergate scribe Carl Bernstein as a guest and brought back the first guest from the first "Reliable Sources" in 1992 — then-local journalist Brian Karem.
Local school staple “Lost on a Mountain in Maine” from 1939 hits the big screen nationwide
Most Maine schoolchildren know about the boy lost for more than a week in 1939 after climbing the state's tallest mountain. Now the rest of the U.S. is getting in on the story.
Opening in 650 movie theaters on Friday, "Lost on a Mountain in Maine" tells the harrowing tale of 12-year-old Donn Fendler, who spent nine days on Mount Katahdin and the surrounding wilderness before being rescued. The gripping story of survival commanded the nation's attention in the days before World War II and the boy's grit earned an award from the president.
For decades, Fendler and Joseph B. Egan's book, published the same year as the rescue, has been required reading in many Maine classrooms, like third-grade teacher Kimberly Nielsen's.
"I love that the overarching theme is that Donn never gave up. He just never quits. He goes and goes," said Nielsen, a teacher at Crooked River Elementary School in Casco, who also read the book multiple times with her own kids.
Separated from his hiking group in bad weather atop Mount Katahdin, Fendler used techniques learned as a Boy Scout to survive. He made his way through the woods to the east branch of the Penobscot River, where he was found more than 30 miles (48 kilometers) from where he started. Bruised and cut, starved and without pants or shoes, he survived nine days by eating berries and lost 15 pounds (7 kilograms).
The boy's peril sparked a massive search and was the focus of newspaper headlines and nightly radio broadcasts. Hundreds of volunteers streamed into the region to help.
The movie builds on the children's book, as told by Fendler to Egan, by drawing upon additional interviews and archival footage to reinforce the importance of family, faith and community during difficult times,... Read More