I’ve been impressed with Brian Stelter since he started TV Newser while still a student at Towson University in Baltimore. After selling that brand to MediaBistro, he landed a job at the NY Times right out of college, covering the media alongside David Carr. Six years later, Stelter left to replace Howard Kurtz at CNN, where he hosts “Reliable Sources” every Sunday and expanding the role of “senior media correspondent” well beyond what Kurtz had done. In fact, Stelter seems to spend every waking second at the network, appearing on camera multiple times a day covering any number of stories.
A few weeks ago, he launched a nightly newsletter that, with contributions from Dylan Byers and other CNN contributors, offers a quick briefing on what’s going on in all forms of media. For example, the e-mail I received last night included items about turmoil at the Las Vegas Review-Journal after it was bought by Sheldon Adelson, the terrorists holding federal land in Oregon, overseas censorship of the NY Times, Oculus Rift, the cancellation of Meredith Vieira’s daytime show, Charlie Hebdo one year after the attack on its office, and the future of Fox News star Megyn Kelly.
That’s a lot of information to gather in one place in one day, but Stelter — who long ago understood the power of the internet as a content distribution platform — is doing a better job of it than anyone else. You can subscribe to his must-read newsletter here.