CNN's Brian Stelter and his latest Reliable Sources panel agreed that Steve Scully and the Commission on Presidential Debates suffered a blow to their credibility in light of the C-SPAN director’s false hacking debacle.

On Sunday, Stelter discussed the media's relationship with President Donald Trump and the right in general. Speaking with TIME’s Charlotte Alter and Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Noah Shachtman, the panel took on the subject of Scully's suspension from C-SPAN, and how that affects both perception and the ability of the media to moderate debates and more.

“How much damage does this do to the national news media as a whole when you have a prominent journalist admitting to lying under pressure?” Stelter asked Shachtman at one point.

Shachtman began his answer saying Scully is “not the first prominent journalist to lie about some tweet he was no longer proud of” and “not the first prominent journalist to claim to have been hacked and then not.”

From there, Shachtman continued by saying “it’s really got to stop” with journalists coming up with “ridiculous” explanations to try avoiding accountability for their errors.

“Yeah, it definitely does damage,” Stelter agreed.

That may not seem to be much of an admission or criticism, but it was a pretty important point to make, and especially to make on CNN. The credibility of the media isn't just an issue for one side, nor just a political talking point. It matters.

You cannot inform if you aren't believed. And Americans need to have a reliable source for information they can trust. Otherwise it's all just a battle over "fake news."
 

Dr. Scott Atlas, top coronavirus pandemic advisor to President Donald Trump and Stanford University fellow, has been contentious and at odds with the other experts and officials heading up the national Covid response since the moment he came on the scene.

And as it turns out, those other experts - notably Dr. Deborah Birx - have become so fed up with it as to confront the Vice President about getting rid of him, a new report revealed on Monday.

In his time at the forefront of Trump-land's public Covid face, Atlas has called congressional testimony from CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield not believable, accused NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci of pushing a false narrative, tweeted something so diametrically opposite of his own task force and administration's recommendations that it was removed by Twitter, and has been revealed to actually oppose widespread testing in favor of a "herd immunity" theory one expert described as "the most amazing combination of pixie dust and pseudoscience" he's ever seen.

But it is the Washington Post's story that really puts Atlas in today's bad job spotlight. 

"Birx recently confronted the office of Vice President Pence, who chairs the task force, about the acrimony, according to two people familiar with the meeting," the Post reports, adding that Birx "told Pence’s office that she does not trust Atlas, does not believe he is giving Trump sound advice and wants him removed from the task force."

Atlas disputes every bit of the article, saying it is "filled with overt lies and distortions to undermine the President and the expert advice he is being given," and denying his herd immunity overtures which are on the record. Birx, however, has not disputed it.

Which says a lot, and none of it plays well for Atlas.