So.
CNN’s Jim Acosta is out at CNN.
Acosta told his viewers that “after giving all of this some careful consideration and weighing an alternative time slot CNN offered me, I have decided to move on.”
USA Today headlined his departure this way: “Why is Jim Acosta leaving CNN? Anchor, Trump critic warns not to ‘bow down’ to tyranny.” (RELATED: Pity the Media?)
USA Today reported this from Acosta on a trip to Cuba. (Acosta is of Cuban descent.)
“[I] had the chance to question the dictator there, Raul Castro, about the island’s political prisoners,” Acosta said on air. “As the son of a Cuban refugee, I took home the lesson … it is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant. I have always believed it’s the job of the press to hold power to account.”
OK. Full stop.
First, I knew Jim when at CNN myself. We disagreed on politics but I found him a likable, nice guy as a colleague. (A description, I should add, that fits all the rest of my CNN colleagues.)
In departing CNN, though, Jim Acosta, unintentionally one suspects, has put his finger on exactly what’s wrong with the so-called “mainstream” media.
Here again, is Acosta saying that “it is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant” and that “it’s the job of the press to hold power to account.” He is also quoted as saying:
“Don’t give in to the lies. Don’t give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth. And to hope, even if you have to get out your phone, record that message,” he said.
“I will not give in to the lies. I will not give in to the fear. Post it on your social media, so people can hear from you, too.”
Amazing.
What Acosta ignores completely, whether deliberately or unconsciously, is this question. Which is: Who holds the powerful press to account? And if it’s “never a good time to bow down to a tyrant” then three cheers to those who refuse to bow down to the tyranny of a self-absorbed, all-powerful press.
What better illustration of refusing to bow down to the tyranny of the press than that famous showdown between Acosta and President Trump at a long ago Trump press conference.
Trump called the mass flow of illegals over the U.S. Southern border an “invasion.” And right there is where Acosta decided to play press tyrant.
Instead of simply noting the fact — say again fact — that this was the president’s view — which is a journalist’s job — Acosta decided to play the opponent, the tyrant, and get into a quite public verbal tussle with the president. Lecturing him that he, Trump, was wrong in describing the massive crowd of illegals coming across the border as such.
Trump, to his considerable credit, would have none of it. To borrow from Acosta, Trump was not going to “bow down” to the tyranny that Acosta was representing. That is the tyranny of the liberal media. Acosta was not a journalist simply reporting the facts of what Trump said. Instead, Acosta took on the role of political opponent, trying to use the power of his position to shut down Trump’s point of view.
All of this is one small piece of evidence that Jim Acosta is hell and gone from the basics of journalism — telling his audience the who, what, and why facts of whatever person and event the journalist is covering. (RELATED: The Total Collapse of the Washington Post)
Acosta is not a journalist. He is a commentator masquerading as a journalist.
It must be said that Acosta is not alone in this masquerade. Far from it. And right there is the central problem with today’s so-called “mainstream media.” Its participants are not about “just the facts” journalism. They are about partisanship — and usually left-wing partisanship.
That, in short, is why these “journalists” detest networks like Fox News, Newsmax, and News Nation. Not to mention conservative talk radio. (And yes, full disclosure, I am a Newsmax contributor.)
The blunt reality here is that for a very long time, leftists ran the tyranny of a powerful media unchallenged. “News” was ill-disguised left-wing propaganda. And woe betide the politician who chose to take on the tyranny of that media.
And taking on Acosta, as Trump did at that press conference, was exactly an example of a political figure with the guts to stand up to the tyranny of a powerful media.
Will Acosta’s departure from CNN change any of this? Don’t hold your breath. The sad fact of American journalism is that it overwhelmingly tilts left. (RELATED: Biden FCC Lets Biased Media Off the Hook at the 11th-Hour — New Trump Chair Says No)
Back there in 2021, National Review focused on its founder, William F. Buckley Jr., saying this:
Sixty-six years ago, an upstart public intellectual founded this publication with a rallying cry. National Review, William F. Buckley wrote in 1955, “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.” This was, and still is, a noble calling, especially at a time when so few are willing to stand athwart an ascendant progressivism that seems intent on erasing all social mores and extinguishing our nation’s rich cultural heritage and dynamism.
By 1967, this very The American Spectator was on its road to creation as a conservative media outlet by our own estimable founder R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. Conservative media was here to stay, with talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and Newsmax eventually appearing.
In short, the conservative media that was established in response was the reality that conservatives were not going to be steamrolled by the tyranny of liberal media.
So when Acosta says “Don’t give in to the lies. Don’t give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth” and “Who holds the powerful press to account?” And it’s “never a good time to bow down to a tyrant” he seems amazingly unaware that he himself is a representative of the tyranny that is the liberal media.
Acosta appears now, per some reports, to be headed to Substack. But wherever he is headed, it is a safe bet that Jim Acosta will continue to represent the tyranny of a powerful left-wing tyranny.
And not regret a single moment of it.
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