Earlier today I noted that CNN’s Jim Acosta was on television yesterday drawing a potential link between President Trump’s attacks on the media and a mass murder. “We don’t obviously know what the motivation was behind the shooting out in Annapolis but the White House is getting questions about whether the president’s rhetoric is getting out of hand,” Acosta said. That was before it became clear that the shooter’s motive was based on a longstanding personal grievance he had with the paper going back several years.
Today, Acosta was back at it. After Trump finished a speech celebrating some good economic news, Acosta tweeted that he’d tried to ask Trump about this:
I tried to ask the president if he would stop calling us the enemy of the people. He did not respond.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) June 29, 2018
Here’s what that actually looked like. Acosta, in the very back of the room, shouting at the president like a heckler:
"Mr. President, will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people," CNN Journalist Jim Acosta shouted at the end of Trump's speech pic.twitter.com/FqWT5afwUV
— POLITICO (@politico) June 29, 2018
Acosta himself retweeted the clip along with some praise directed his way:
Thank you @Acosta (and who’s that guy shushing you?) https://t.co/ptWUjt2yv5
— Jenn Taylor-Skinner (@JTaylorSkinner) June 29, 2018
But not everyone is impressed. Former CNN producer Steve Krakauer blasted Acosta as “an embarrassment on multiple levels.”
On a day journalists could honor the memory of fellow reporters tragically killed due to a deranged person with a vendetta going back years, Acosta tries to shift the blame to Trump, thus validating many Americans’ feelings about the Acela Media (that existed long before Trump).
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) June 29, 2018
Having made a spectacle of himself (again), Acosta is now going to be rewarded with more CNN airtime:
Sunday on @ReliableSources: My in-depth interview with @Acosta
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 29, 2018
Stelter can often be relied upon to defend the media from all claims of partisan bias (often wrongly) and I think it’s a safe bet he’s not going to take the gloves off with the senior White House reporter from his own network. Still, I’d love to be wrong. Stelter should ask why Acosta is constantly grandstanding and then calling attention to his own grandstanding in a way that obviously pleases an anti-Trump audience. He could also ask why it’s okay for Acosta to insinuate on CNN that a mass shooting might be connected to the President’s rhetoric in the absence of any facts? Would one or two tough questions be that much to ask?
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