Before naming the winner, a video montage (see below) makes mention of some of the Media Research Center's (MRC) runners-up.
On November 2nd, about a week out from the 2022 midterm elections, Historian Michael Beschloss and the entire MSNBC panel on "All in with Chris Hayes" were terrified that Republicans might make gains.
"We could be six days away from losing our rule of law," he warned. "A historian will say what was at stake tonight and this week was the fact whether we will be a democracy in the future, whether our children will be arrested and conceivably killed. We're on the edge of a brutal authoritarian system, and it could be a week away."
David Zurawik of The Baltimore Sun simply gushed over CNN's role in stopping the Trump train.
"Of all the television broadcast networks and cable channels, it pushed harder … from 2016 to 2020 against Trump, and it was part of the firewall that, I think, has saved democracy thus far under Jeff Zucker," he touted.
Historian Elie Mystal also received recognition for what he had to say about America's Founding Fathers.
"[Justice] Alito's fundamental legal reasoning is that abortion is not a fundamental right, and he's right about that," Mystal noted about the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Roe vs. Wade. "The Founding Fathers didn't recognize abortion as a fundamental right, because the Founding Fathers were racist, misogynist jerk faces who didn't believe that women have any rights at all."
But ultimately, the winner of the 2022 Brian Stelter Memorial Award for Worst Quote of the Year went to Don Lemon (again).
When Stephen Colbert posed, "The word on the street is that you guys aren't allowed to be liberal anymore. Is that the case?" about CNN, Lemon responded, "I don't think we ever were liberal."
