What Brian Stelter can teach all of us

On second chances.

In August 2022, CNN got rid of Brian Stelter.

Brian was one of the most high-profile faces at the network — a TV personality who had also ran a successful nightly media newsletter.

His firing was the first in a series of moves made by then CNN President Chris Licht aimed at 1) cutting costs amid a massive debt burden carried by the network’s parent company and 2) moving away from aggressive criticism and coverage of Donald Trump to a more “centrist” approach to the news (whatever that means).

One of those subsequent moves was laying off me — and hundreds of other CNN employees — that fall.

On Tuesday, Brian announced that he was returning to CNN in the role of “Chief Media Analyst.” Of his return, he wrote:

The media industry has matured, CNN has evolved, and I have changed a lot since I signed off two years ago. I loved my old life as the anchor of a Sunday morning show but, to borrow some lingo from my video game blogger days, I finished that level of the game. Time for new levels, new challenges.

On the most basic level, this makes me happy. Brian is a friend and he will make CNN, a place where I still have a ton of friends, better. This is a good thing for journalism.

On a deeper level, I think there are some lessons to be learned from Brian’s arc over the past two years.

The biggest lesson is this: Being laid off — or even fired — is rarely about you.

The tendency when a company tells you that they don’t want you to work there anymore is to internalize it — to spend days, weeks and sometimes even months trying to figure out what you did wrong and how you could have fixed it before it led to your departure.

I know this from personal experience. I spent months re-litigating my time at CNN, trying to understand where I had turned from “rising star” to “person on the chopping block.”

What I eventually came to realize was that it wasn’t about me. Not really. I was a name on an Excel spreadsheet. The company needed to cut costs. I made good money. It made smart business sense.

Ditto Brian. Licht needed to trim CNN’s budget. (This order came from above; Licht was just a guy doing a job.) And wanted a high-profile scalp that he could show to investors that suggested he was bringing an end to the Trump-focused era of CNN. Brian happened to be the guy he picked. It could have been someone else — for sure.

(Sidebar: I do — and always will— defend the way people like Brian and I covered Trump during our time at CNN. We fact checked him. We held him to account. When he lied, we said he lied.)

It was never really about Brian. Or me. We were just pawns in a broader financial and political game.

I hope that if you find yourself — now or at some point in the future — laid off, you can remember this: It isn’t about you. There are almost always larger forces swirling, forces over which you have little control. Sometimes you are the hammer in life. But, unfortunately, sometimes you are the nail too.

There’s one more thought I had when I heard about Brian’s re-hiring: That jobs and opportunities are all about finding the right fit. It’s not about you — or your future employer. It’s about them needing a specific kind of piece and you being that piece.

CNN suffered a blow when its lead media reporter — Oliver Darcy, who stepped in to fill Brian’s shoes two years ago — recently announced he was leaving to start his own, independent media newsletter. (It’s called “Status,” and you absolutely should check it out.)

Suddenly, CNN needed a high-profile face for its media coverage. And Brian just happened to be a free agent. Perfect fit!

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my 15-year old son this past spring as he was trying out for a bunch of pretty high-end travel soccer teams. I told him that the process wasn’t so much an objective evaluation of whether or not he was good enough to be on any of these specific teams. It was much more about fit — did they need the position he played (central defense) and the type of kid he is (vocal and hard working on the field). Not taking him on the team didn’t mean he was a bad player; it meant he wasn’t the right fit at that moment for that team.

Same goes for Brian (and all of us). CNN under Chris Licht didn’t think he was the right fit. CNN under new boss Mark Thompson does. Brian didn’t change. CNN did.

The analogy I have taken to using when talking to people about being laid off — and their subsequent job searches — is that of looking for a parking spot in downtown DC.

I probably drive into DC twice a week. I never have an assigned spot. I just drive around the area where I have a meeting or a class until I find something. Sometimes it takes 2 minutes and the spot that opens up on the street is right next to where I am headed. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes and I wind up parking four blocks from my destination.

But the point is this: I always find a spot. There’s never been a time when I went into DC and turned around and came home because there were no spots. I never know — going into it — how long it’s going to take to find that spot (or how good a spot it’s going to be) but I am certain I will find something.

That’s the job process. You never know when that spot is going to open up. Or where. You have to just keep driving around. But you need to know a spot will eventually open up. And you will be there to grab it.

Brian grabbed his spot. And showed, in the process, that getting fired or laid off isn’t the end. It’s only a new beginning.