 Stelter was born on September 3, 1985, in Damascus, Maryland, the son of Donna and Mark Stelter.He attended Damascus High School, graduating in 2003, followed by Towson University where he served as editor-in-chief of "The Towerlight" from 2005 to 2007.While still a student, he created "TVNewser", a blog about television and cable news which he later sold to Mediabistro and became a part of the "Adweek" blog network.