CNN’s Brian Stelter Says He Dated A Fox News Staffer Who Was Actually Sent To Spy On Him

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In an appearance on CNN’S New Day Tuesday, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter revealed that a decade ago, Fox News sent one of their female staffers to spy on him … by dating him. In a conversation about dozens of recent allegations of sexual harassment against Roger Ailes, the panel’s subject shifted to reporting by New York‘s Gabriel Sherman, who has covered Ailes extensively, even writing a biography of Fox News’ former chairman and CEO in 2014. Sherman recently reported that Ailes had used the Fox News budget to track and conduct smear campaigns against his personal and corporate enemies. Stelter provided what he views as an illustrative example of this:

“About ten years ago I had a crush on a woman at Fox News. She was a low level staffer. I was in college at the time. So I was going out on what I thought were dates. Chris, I thought these were dates. These were not dates. She was actually reporting back to Fox News about me. She was reporting back about what I thought of her and about CNN and MSNBC and Fox. Because I was a reporter on the beat, they were actually spying on me that way.”

Stelter went on to say that although he “didn’t think that was a big deal at the time,” he later realizes now that “they were actually sending out private investigators. They were tailing other reporters.” Stelter’s CNN colleague Bill Carter added: “They were following reporters around. We knew covering Fox, you’d have to deal with that.” He went on, “You’d get a call from them saying, ‘You better be right on this story’ or the implication was, ‘We’ll dig into your past, we’ll dig into your private life.'”

(Via The Daily Beast & Media Matters)

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