In one of the most asinine discussions about the liberal media’s credibility problem, CNN host Brian Stelter took to Reliable Sources on Sunday to defend his outlet and the rest of the media for the latest swarm of fake news stories plaguing the country. And offering no apology to the public for muddying the discourse, Stelter defended their precious anonymous sources while his guests claimed such reckless mistakes were why the public should trust what they say.

Stelter began the segment with a recap of what was fake about their story. “With ABC's suspension of Ross still in the headlines, I asked CNN if there would be disciplinary action against [Manu] Raju or his co-writer Jeremy Herb. A spokeswoman said no,” he said. According to Stelter, it was because the journalists followed the networks so-called “standards process.” But Stelter failed to mention that those writers issued the report without ever seeing the e-mail in question, just the description from those who saw it. What kind of ridiculous standard is that?

“Now, the sources have been reliable in the past. But they were not this time. The spokeswoman said CNN had no reason to believe this was malicious, meaning the sources weren't trying to trick the reporters, the sources were just mistaken,” Stelter explained, defending the dead wrong source. And almost as though he was trying to get the attention off of CNN, he pointed to other news organizations that had pushed their own fake news.

Stelter didn’t seem bothered by the fact that CNN’s lack of transparency in sorting out the misinformation was further hurting their already tattered credibility.

The first guest to sing the praises of the media was veteran reporter Carl Bernstein. “We have to get back to the notion that – which is absolutely correct, that most of the media really tries, the mainstream media – the big news institutions from The Washington Post and The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal to CNN really go out of their way to be accurate, factual, contextual and we do and we have done a pretty good job of it,” he rambled.

Stelter then asked former Republican David Frum about what advice he had for viewers during this trying time for the press. According to him, their factious reporting was just why they should be trusted:

I would say, the mistakes are precisely the reason the people should trust the media. Look, astronomers make mistakes all the time because science is a process of discovery of truth. Astrologers never make mistakes or at least they never own up to them, because what they are offering a closed system of ideology and propaganda.

Using Frum’s warped logic, cheating on your spouse is precisely the reason they should trust you in the future. Use at your own risk.

Not long after that, Bernstein praised the media’s ravenous reporting on the Russia investigation saying: “The general excellence of the media's coverage particularly of Donald Trump, his presidency, and this story.” He then trashed Trump supporters for not being open-minded enough to see a possibility of collusion.

“The media, generally speaking, the mainstream media makes far fewer errors than most institutions in our culture, because we indeed are in the business of trying not to make errors,” Bernstein opined, citing no evidence. “And we have all kinds of procedures in place to keep us from making those errors.” But that apparently didn’t stop any of these new outlets from pushing false stories. CBS had actually claimed to have confirmed CNN’s false report.

For some reason, Frum was fuming and decided to smear Fox News as a news organization that didn’t have an interest in finding the truth. And in a knock against the rest of the media, Frum declared that “the worst mistakes that press organizations have made in the coverage of Trump has precisely occurred in their effort – their overzealous effort to be fair to the President.” He actually stopped himself mid-sentence to go back and add “overzealous” as a descriptor. What news was he watching?

Frum also claimed that CNN’s biggest mistake so far was in hiring Trump supporters to be commentators. “The worst mistake CNN has made had been the result determination to bring in-house Trump associates in order to promote Trump falsehoods,” he chided. But to Stelter’s credit, he defended them, saying he thought it was important to hear their voices.

Despite the flood of fake news stories from the liberal media, Stelter had been on Twitter whining about how the President continued to call out CNN and others during rallies. You have no legs to stand on and complain about the President when you own news outlet was caught peddling false information as a bombshell report.

Transcript below: