What Jeremy Renner learned by playing a reporter in "Kill the Messenger"
Actor Jeremy Renner and director Michael Cuesta tell Brian Stelter about the lessons from their new film "Kill The Messenger."
In the film, Renner plays Gary Webb, who wrote a flawed but substantively true story back in 1996 about connections between the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s and the CIA's support for Nicaraguan rebels known as Contras. Webb and his story were attacked by other major media outlets.
Stelter said in his introduction: "Next time there's a big story that breaks - a big political or legal scandal - pay attention to what people say about the reporter or the source who broke the news. Are they trying to discredit the reporter? Turn people against the reporter? Distract from the actual allegations? Are they trying to... kill the messenger?"
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About the host
Brian Stelter is the host of "Reliable Sources" and the senior media correspondent for CNN Worldwide. Before he joined CNN in November 2013, Stelter was a media reporter for The New York Times. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller "Top of the Morning."
Here's his biography. You can read his stories on this blog and at CNNMoney.com/Media/.
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