Jim Acosta

About

Jim Acosta is an American journalist and CNN's chief White House correspondent. His full name is Abilio James Acosta.

History

Acosta's television career began after in 1994, working for WTTG, before becoming a reporter for WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1995 to 1998.^[1] He joined CNN in 2007, covering the 2008 presidential election. In 2018, he was named CNN's chief Washington correspondent.

Criticism

Acosta rose to prominence in the public for his questioning of United States President Donald Trump, during Trump's presidential campaign and in his first terms as president. During this time, President Trump has frequently named Acosta as an example of the fake news, a term the president uses to describe pieces of news media that criticizes him or his policies. In fact, during the infamous press conference in which the term was popularized in the context of the presidency, Acosta was one of the first to be called "fake news."

White House Suspension

On November 7th, 2018, Acosta attempted to question President Trump on such subjects as the 2018 Honduras Caravan and the investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government. President Trump refused to answer and said to Acosta, "You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN."

When a White House intern attempted to take the microphone from Acosta, the journalist relented and pulled the microphone closer to his chest (shown below).

Following the exchange, Acosta tweeted,^[2] "I’ve just been denied entrance to the WH. Secret Service just informed me I cannot enter the WH grounds for my 8pm hit." The tweet received more than 38,000 retweets and 96,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

He later tweeted a video recording of a Secret Service officer requesting his press credentials and refusing his entrance to the White House (shown below).

That day, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement, accusing Acosta of "placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her jobs as White House intern."^[3]

Acosta responded to a series of tweets^[4] featuring the statement with "this is a lie." The post received more than 80,000 retweets and 300,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below, left).

CNN^[5] released a statement on Twitter stating that the suspension "was done in retaliation for his challenging questions at today's press conference. In an explanation, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders lie." The tweet received more than 17,000 retweets and 48,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below, right)

That evening, Sanders released an allegedly doctored video of the incident stating, "We stand by our decision to revoke this individual’s hard pass. We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video." The tweet received more than 25,000 retweets and 78,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

Reporter Aymann Ismail account posted a series of videos showing how the post by Sanders, which they claim came from conspiracy theory website Infowars, was doctored.^[6] They wrote, "The clip being shared by the WH Press Secretary and Infowars has been slowed down then sped up to create the illusion of a karate chop […] The intern's reach for the mic is slowed down, and the 'chop' motion is accelerated. Here's an annotated side by side comparison […] Further analysis: video is absolutely doctored. You can see the edit when the clips are side by side and slowed down to quarter speed."

Inforwars correspondent Paul Joseph Watson denied that the video was doctored, posting a video comparing his to the video from CSPAN, which some contested only proved that the video was doctored.

However, BuzzFeed contested that "This video analysis by BuzzFeed News demonstrates what the gif conversion process does to video. While it's not technically 'sped up' by intent, it effectively is in practice."

Lawsuit

On November 13th, CNN filed a lawsuit against Trump and his aides involved in removing Acosta's White House access. That morning, the @CNNPR^[7] Twitter feed tweeted about the lawsuit, claiming that the White House "violated CNN and @Acosta's First Amendment rights" (shown below).

Also that day, CNN aired a segment aduring which host Brian Stelter explained the details of the lawsuit (shown below). Meanwhile, posts about the lawsuit reached the front page of the /r/news^[8] and /r/politics^[9] subreddits.

On November 16th, a federal judge ruled that the White House had to immediately restore Acota's press pass.

Search Interest

External References