We Need More People Like Him

Why CNN pushed out Jim Acosta

Credit: Getty Images

The warnings about the corporate takeover of American media companies have been long and loud. Never has the prospect, or really the reality, been as clear as it is today, at the beginning of Trump’s second term.

When the bottom line and appeasing a tyrant are the goals, rather than reporting the news and holding those in power accountable, America suffers and democracy teeters. We are seeing this play out in real time.

Case in point: Jim Acosta, formerly of CNN.

Yesterday Acosta announced that he would resign from CNN, where he has worked as reporter, White House correspondent, and anchor for 18 years. There is a lot to this story, so let’s start at the beginning, in 2016.

Acosta covered Trump’s first run for the presidency and was then made senior White House correspondent for his first term. He approached the job with his signature passion and held Trump to account. The relationship with the administration and with Trump personally could be characterized as confrontational, in a good way. That benefited both parties, until it didn’t.

For Trump, he had a punching bag in the mainstream media who wouldn’t back down. For CNN, Acosta was “good TV” and ratings gold: 2016 was the network’s most-watched year. At the time, longtime TV news guy Jeff Zucker was president of CNN, and he had Acosta’s back, encouraging him to stay aggressive.

Acosta was unrelenting. He went after the administration in the briefing room almost daily. After two years, Trump had had enough, calling Acosta a “rude, terrible person” and revoking his press credentials. CNN successfully sued to get them reinstated. That was then.

But Trump’s second electoral victory has cowed the news network. With a new executive at the helm, CNN seems to have been neutered.

First, it surrendered the high road. In an editorial meeting just prior to the inauguration, new CNN CEO Mark Thompson warned the on-air talent to give Trump a chance. As reported by Oliver Darcy on Status, a person at the meeting said, “He cautioned against expressing any outrage of their own, as many of the anchors who make up CNN’s roster of journalists had previously done with regularity during Trump’s first term.”

It seems that the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned network is trying to rebrand itself as more centrist, less anti-Trump. And that is a problem. A news organization, a good one, shouldn’t have an agenda, a vibe, a slant. It should report the news.

Then Thompson threw the juiciest of bones to the president: He pushed Acosta, Trump’s nemesis, to midnight. That’s right: One of the network’s best and best-known reporters was told his broadcast was being moved from its 10 am slot, where his ratings were reportedly some of the best at the network, to the graveyard shift — the TV news equivalent of Siberia.

As you might imagine, it was like Christmas at the White House. Trump celebrated the move with disparaging remarks on Truth Social. “Wow, really good news! Jim Acosta, one of the worst and most dishonest reporters in journalistic history, a major sleazebag, has delegated [SIC] by CNN Fake News to the Midnight hour.”

Let us pause here to underscore the fact that the president of the United States is calling an American citizen who has done nothing dishonest or illegal “a major sleazebag.”

Acosta decided that he wasn’t going to accept the midnight time slot.

Tuesday, in his last appearance on CNN, Acosta implored his viewers to stay strong. “Don’t give into the lies. Don’t give into the fear. Hold onto the truth and to hope.”

He also said that he was joining Substack. While it’s good that Acosta is joining the site, it pains me that the mainstream media has lost a good reporter. The need is for more like Acosta, not fewer.

Later, he spoke with Norm Eisen on the Contrarian on Substack.

“Journalists exist to seek the truth, to tell people’s stories, to lift up voices that may not be heard otherwise, to shine a light on injustice, and to hold the powerful accountable. We are not the enemy of the people, we are the defenders of the people.”

The famously combative Sam Donaldson of ABC News, who sparred with President Ronald Reagan for years, explained why it is different now. “Nobody I was asking questions of lied to my face,” he said. “Nobody was trying to tell the American people the press was their enemy.”

CNN is not the only news organization to buckle under Trump’s pressure, to try to appease the unappeasable.

Four days before the inauguration, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post trotted out a new mission statement: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America,” which might as well be the motto for Reader’s Digest. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” will remain on the masthead but is no longer the aim of the organization. This on the heels of dumping the planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in the presidential race on the day it was to be published.

Mark Zuckerberg, whom Trump threatened to put in prison for life, has fallen all over himself to please the incoming president. Among the changes he instituted at Facebook, just days before the inauguration: removing third-party fact-checkers, under the guise of free speech.

In December, ABC News chose to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Trump. The news organization agreed to give $15 million to Trump’s presidential library fund rather than go to trial.

All of this is a reminder that as corporate consolidation of the media increases and news organizations are more beholden to their parent overlords, those parent companies are increasingly worried about retribution from a petty president. That worry, rather than reporting the truth, is now driving decision-making in many places.

Truly independent journalism, like that found on Substack and at organizations like ProPublica and PBS, must now step up to fill the void left by corporate-run legacy media.

All a reminder that a free and independent — truly independent, fiercely independent, when necessary — press is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy.

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Stay Steady,
Dan