Every so often, people stumble upon the truth, or at least something like it. During last night’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the late-night funnyman cracked a joke about cable news’ supposed objectivity with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.
“I know you guys are objective over there, that you just report the news as it is,” Stephen Colbert said, to immediate laughter from his studio audience. His guest, Collins joins along with the laughter, asking, “Was that supposed to be a laugh line?”
Colbert shrugs in a coy manner, like Winnie the Pooh with his hand in the honey pot. “I guess it is!”
This candid moment is spreading across the Twittersphere, echoing a common sentiment that cable news presents current events with a distorted or biased perspective. In some cases (won’t say which), they outright ignore anything is happening at all.
This sort of caddy swipe isn’t new to Colbert, who made his bones in political comedy for more than 20 years. Before taking the reigns of The Late Show from David Letterman in 2015, he hosted The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, where he played the part of an unhinged conservative host in the mold of Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity. Before that, he was an equally caddy correspondent on The Daily Show starting in 1997, before the Jon Stewart golden years.
Colbert’s guest, Collins, began her career in the conservative media sphere in 2014, first as an intern and then and later an Entertainment Editor with The Daily Caller. Starting in 2017, Collins became a reporter for CNN, eventually becoming the cable news network’s Chief White House Correspondent—the youngest in history, in fact.
Currently, Collins hosts The Source with Kaitlan Collins, which airs at 9 p.m. on CNN. Despite her past working for a conservative media outlet, Collins is a registered Independent.