Filed under: History, Humor, Immigration, Law, Media Bias, National Security, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, The United States | Tags: A Partisan Press, CNN Sues, Jim Acosta
CNN is suing President Trump or the White House or something because they took away poor Jim Acosta’s press pass. The grounds seem to be the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The First Ten Amendments were ratified on December 15, 1791. I would suggest that when they spoke of “the press” in 1791, they were talking about the printing press and what could be printed. There was, at that time, no gaggle of reporters shouting questions at the President of the United States. More likely there was a town crier who disseminated the news, such as it was. But then I am not a lawyer.
At the Federalist, Mollie Hemingway takes on Mr. Acosta, suggesting that the conventional story is wrong, and under the headline “Jim Acosta Bears Most of the Blame” says:
Precisely no one actually thinks that Acosta is a good news journalist. He might be good entertainment, for some, but he doesn’t break news or accurately report it. He’s a pundit who loves to offer his opinions all day, every day.
Even among his colleagues he’s known as a preener rather than a reporter. He doesn’t break stories or dig into facts. He preens on camera and does it in a way that makes it harder for legitimate press corps members to hold the administration accountable .
Every second that Acosta uses to preen and whine at a press conference is a second that a real journalist can’t use to ask questions or elicit information the American people need to know about. His behavior doesn’t just damage his own reputation, it hurts CNN’s and the entire journalism profession.
His behavior last week crossed a line when he physically refused a young female intern attempting to provide the White House microphone to another reporter. He then doubled down and falsely claimed without evidence that he didn’t touch her. In fact, video evidence showing he did touch her is incontrovertible.
Ouch! Then at Commentary, John Steele Gordon takes on another Acosta display of ignorance. Jim Acosta did not approve of the President’s new immigration proposal.
Acosta essentially made two points: One was that the proposed legislation that Miller was defending did not square with the poem by Emma Lazarus (“give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”). Miller pointed out that, great as the poem is, it is not part of the Constitution. Furthermore, the circumstances of 1883, when it was written, are perhaps no longer pertinent in the early 21st century and we might need new legislation to deal with that reality.
Acosta’s other point was that the legislation would require immigrants to know English before they could get a green card. He apparently didn’t know that current law requires the very same thing. He could have looked it up in a few seconds on Wikipedia, but, as Jim Vlasto said, political reporters tend to be lazy. Acosta then said that that requirement would mean that only immigrants from Britain and Australia could get in. Perhaps he’s never heard of Canada, where practically all its 35 million citizens, including French Canadians, can speak English.
While Mandarin Chinese has the most native speakers, with around 900 million, English is third with about 371 million. But Mandarin is spoken almost entirely in Northern China. English is either the official or an official language in no fewer than 52 different countries around the world. The sun may have set on the British Empire, but the sun never sets on the English language.
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
