Jim Acosta roasted for posting shameless selfie, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect

August 9, 2018 | | Print Article

CNN’s Jim Acosta was roasted as a showboating clown by the liberal magazine The Atlantic, which slammed his “dangerous brand of performance journalism.”

Ironically, the story was published one day before Acosta posted a narcissistic selfie where he gleefully preens in front of a mirror. The photo was taken shortly before Jim talked about himself ad nauseam on Stephen Colbert’s talk show.

Jim Acosta loves Jim Acosta.
Jim Acosta loves Jim Acosta. (Twitter selfie)

In his piece, writer Todd Purdum blasted Acosta for using White House press briefings to make himself the focus of the day’s news. Purdum, who was previously a WH correspondent for the New York Times, said he has seen these self-serving stunts before.

“The ritual has all too often become a circus of reportorial self-expression, and sometimes self-promotion,” Purdom wrote in The Atlantic. “I should know. I was there, as a White House correspondent for The New York Times in the mid-1990s, and more often than I’d like to think, I contributed to this devolution.”

Purdum — who is not a Trump supporter — said Acosta’s antics only confirm that President Trump is correct when he says the mainstream media are no longer “journalists,” but instead are political activists who push liberal narratives and fake news.

Purdum noted:

“Whenever a reporter who has not been kidnapped by terrorists, shot by an assailant, or won a big prize becomes an actor in her own story, she has lost the fight.

Or in this case, reinforced the corrosive, cynical, and deeply dangerous feedback loop that has convinced Trump’s most fervent supporters that his relentless brief against the press has merit: FAKE NEWS! SAD!”

 

Predictably, liberals trashed The Atlantic piece, but others thought it rang true. Meanwhile, Acosta was hilariously mocked on Twitter for his awkward selfie.

“Acosta actually does this for like 11 hours a day,” one Twitter user observed.

Mirror mirror on the wall…

Many on Twitter noticed that Acosta had a box of Zantac heartburn medicine on his dressing-room table, prompting them to remark that Acosta can barely stomach his own lies.

"Jim Acosta requires Zantac to stomach the lies he tells."
“Jim Acosta requires Zantac to stomach the lies he tells.”

Tyler Olea quipped, “His own esophagus can’t even tolerate the rest of him.”

Guy Savoie remarked, “What a coincidence!! I also pop a few Zantac when I hear you at a press briefing.”

“BREAKING NEWS: Jim Acosta requires Zantac to stomach the lies he tells.”

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Haha.

Acosta isn’t the only liberal reporter who has thirstily exploited the White House press briefings to raise their own profile rather than report the news, but he’s definitely one of the most annoying.

The Atlantic piece perfectly captured Acosta’s self-obsession and CNN’s erosion of professionalism and journalistic ethics:

“Acosta’s confrontation—so florid, so vivid—also plays directly into Trump’s received narrative about a hostile, combative, and even unfair press. It’s an uncomfortable echo of Dan Rather’s famous 1974 exchange with Richard Nixon, when an audience at the National Association of Broadcasters’ meeting greeted Rather’s mere introduction with applause (and scattered boos), and Nixon inquired, “Are you running for something?” Rather bowed his head in a humble-brag way before rejoining, “No, sir, Mr. President, are you?” prompting a frozen skeleton’s smile from Nixon.

The last thing Trump—or the press, or the public—needs is another convenient villain in the performative arena of the long-running reality show that is his administration.

Acosta’s broadside blurs the line between reporting and performance, between work and war, at a time when journalists have a greater obligation than ever to demonstrate that what they do is real, and matters—and is not just part of the passing show.”

 

It is because of these shenanigans that Acosta has been heckled at Trump rallies by Americans who shout, “Tell the truth!”  “CNN sucks” and “You’re a liar!”

Acosta and other self-proclaimed “journalists” should heed Todd Purdum’s advice: “It is the working journalist’s first maxim to show, not tell; to do, not say; to explain, not exhort.”

Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson summed it up best when he said Jim Acosta is a fraud “journalist.”

 

More fake news from CNN: CNN deleted the words “Muslim extremist” in a story about Muslim extremists training kids to commit school shootings.

 

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Samantha Chang

Samantha Chang

Samantha Chang is a politics/lifestyle writer and a financial editor. She is a law school graduate and an alum of the University of Pennsylvania. You can find her on Twitter at @Samantha_Chang.
Samantha Chang

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