Cable news made accused con man Michael Avenatti into the big-time celebrity he became. But no one did more to legitimize him than CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter.
Avenatti now faces three separate federal indictments for various acts of fraud and attempted extortion, but once upon a time he considered himself a viable contender for the presidency. And Stelter was among his most credulous fans.
“And looking ahead to 2020, one reason I’m taking you seriously as a contender is because of your presence on cable news,” Stelter told Avenatti just last year. This was a humorously self-fulfilling comment, as, Avenatti would ultimately appear on CNN more than 100 times.
With the latest indictment issued against him, this time for defrauding Stormy Daniels (remember her?), Stelter issued a mea culpa.
Well, sort of.
Starting at the 53rd paragraph of his newsletter, Stelter writes:
Obviously I’m not taking him seriously anymore, but I own that comment. He showed a Trump-like mastery of the media last year. I think there’s been a lot of introspection in newsrooms about the reasons for that mastery. I think what’s most important now is that the cases against him are covered fairly and thoroughly, not soft-pedaled by people who previously interviewed him OR sensationalized by people who dislike him.
Stelter is correct that both Avenatti and President Trump are bombastic, big-city bullies with a penchant for charming their most ardent supporters. But Trump’s “mastery of the media” has very little to do with Trump and everything to do with the media. For the decade prior to his presidential run, Trump was a garish and gargantuan television star. But he wasn’t a star in the news. Once he began running, his campaign shtick was obvious: incite outrage and dominate the headlines to gift cable those sweet, sweet views. And the media complied — CNN was among the worst in this regard, but it was not alone.
Trump skipped a Fox News primary debate in protest of Megyn Kelly actually holding his feet to the fire. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski freely gave him his own town hall, during which they were caught on a hot mic agreeing not to ask him anything “too hard.”
Trump’s plan was fairly transparent, but the media marched in lockstep with it anyway. Avenatti followed the playbook even more transparently, and yet again, the media enabled him.
Stelter’s right that for better or worse — and it’s mostly for worse — presidents tend to embody some sort of stardom, and often that translates to television presence. But to act as though cheap sound bytes and daily cable bookings themselves confer a level of gravitas is just disingenuous.
The Stormy Daniels story itself mattered, primarily because it called into question both Trump’s ethics and the legality of his campaign finances. But just as Daniels obviously should have never brought Avenatti into her narrative, the media shouldn’t have given him a blank check to write himself into the story.
