As CNN once again decides to make the news all about CNN by suing the Trump administration after they stripped CNN's resident activist Jim Acosta of his hard pass, which allows reporters permanent daily access to the White House press room without having to apply for a daily pass, after Jim Acosta once again became combative, rude and obnoxious, then refused to hand over the shared microphone to the WH intern in charge of passing it around to other reporters, physically stopping her from taking it from him.
Here is the full exchange between Acosta and President Trump, and the intern's attempts to take the microphone to hand over to the next reporter:
Acosta and CNN's claim is that revoking Acosta's hard pass they are someone violating his First Amendment rights, yet dozens of other CNN employees have those same passes and Acosta can still report from outside and write his articles, so while different experts give varied opinions on whether CNN has a case or not, Ken Klukowski, senior legal editor for Breitbart News, says the White House will most definitely win this in court, because there is no constitutional right to be allowed a hard pass into the White House.
As can be seen below in a clip put together by Media Research Center, this was not the first time Acosta has interrupted colleagues when it was their turn to ask questions, nor been rude and obnoxious, arguing rather than asking a question then a follow up and allowing others to take their turn, during other press conferences.
Whether CNN wins or loses this lawsuit, and any appeals from either party, this has the potential to end up going all the way to the Supreme Court, but there is absolutely no doubt that some of the press, in the Trump era, has turned the White House press briefings, and any pressers with the President himself, into a combat session, rather than a question and answer events, which it is meant to be.
There is no decorum from Acosta and those like April Ryan, another one that consistently interrupts her colleagues to scream out questions out of turn, no respect for other reporters, no limit to how angry and argumentative they get as they act more like leftwing activists than they do journalists and reporters.
Then they take to social media and whine about how they are the victims.
In my opinion, the White House should smile, give Acosta his hard pass, then refuse to hold any White House press briefings as long as he is in attendance and make it crystal clear that his presence is why there is no event, each and every day. All admin officials should refuse to interact with him in any way, while speaking to any other reporter, whether from CNN or not..... just not Acosta.
As an amusing side note, it was recently discovered that Amazon's Alexa, when asked "Alexa.... Who is Jim Acosta?," was telling users "Abilio James Acosta is an American fake journalist who is currently the Chief White House Correspondent for CNN." (Video at Breitbart)
The examples above are part of the reason CNN, and other liberal news outlets, have been criticized over the past two years for acting more like activists than journalists, and why President Trump has dubbed many that have published fake news as "enemies of the people."
A recent Zogby Analytics survey shows, 72 percent of American voters feel the "mainstream media has played a major role in dividing Americans along racial, gender and political lines," leading to a "spread of hate and misunderstanding among some people."
That included 51 percent of Democrats.
Zogby Analytics has asked about the media's role, and President Trump's role, in dividing America, with nearly two-thirds blaming the president, but more, nearly three-fourths blaming the media.
In order to determine who voters blame more, we asked likely voters in separate questions, "Do you agree or disagree: The mainstream media/President Trump has played a major role in dividing Americans along racial, gender and political lines. This has led to a spread of hate and misunderstanding among some people."
It's no surprise that strong majorities blame both the mainstream media and Trump: Nearly three-quarters agreed (strongly and somewhat agree combined) that the mainstream media plays a major role in the spread of hate, while only 29% disagreed with this notion. This was more than the two-thirds of respondents, who felt the same about President Trump, while one-third disagreed. We will get into the specific details of the president's role, regarding America's political divide, in our next release.
Zogby's initial release broke down the demographics and results regarding the media, to be followed up with the same regarding the President's role in an upcoming release.
Some of the key demographic findings listed below in bullet points.
• Men (70% agree) and women (73% agree) were very much in agreement (strongly and somewhat agree combined) about the role the mainstream media plays in dividing the public and spreading hate.
• Interestingly, younger voters age 18-24 and age 18-29 (81-82% strongly and somewhat agree/18-19% strongly and somewhat disagree) were much more likely to blame the media for spreading hate and misunderstanding than older voters age 65+ (62% strongly and somewhat agree/38% strongly and somewhat disagree) and age 70+ (67% strongly and somewhat agree/33% strongly and somewhat disagree).
• Republicans (94% agree/6% disagree) were almost twice as likely to agree compared to Democrats (51% agree/49% disagree) with the media's role in dividing voters and spreading hate. Independents were more in line with voters overall: 74% agreed and 26% disagreed.
• White (76% agree/24% disagree) and Hispanic (64% agree/36% disagree) voters were more likely to agree that the mainstream media plays a part in spreading hate and misunderstanding, while black voters were most likely to disagree (54% agree/46% disagree).
Despite the differences in percentages by age, race, gender and party affiliation, the majority of all demographics do agree that the media spreads "hate" and plays a major role in divisions along racial, general and political lines, which indicates that the American people "see" what the media refuses to see about itself.
They are hate mongers that will seed division for nothing more than ratings, rather than doing their jobs which is supposed to be "reporting the news."
As to the President, no one denies his rambunctious rhetoric, nor that he is always up for a good battle, whether with individual reporters or with the media that has so often been careless in their reporting and has often been forced to correct, retract, sometimes delete, or simply change articles after their disinformation was debunked or challenged.
The huge difference here is the President sits in office after being voted in as a Republican, despite his changing party affiliations over the years, so his comments will generally be conservative in nature, as those are the voters that put him in office, but the media claims, over and over, that they are not biased, even as all polls asking about bias, show the majority of Americans see their bias.
BOTTOM LINE
How the liberal mainstream media has devolved over the decades from being an entity that took pride in reporting news and informing their readers and/or viewers of current events, to becoming the propaganda arm of the Democrat party, acting more like activists than journalists, can be clearly seen in how the public views them, and the new numbers from Zogby should make them take a good, hard look at themselves in the mirror, but sadly, they do not seem inclined to do so.
According to Gallup which has been polling trust in the media since 1972, in the late 70s, Americans had a considerable amount trust in the MSM, with 72 percent having a great deal (18%) or fair amount (54%) of trust in the media in 1976, with only 4 percent saying they had no trust and 22 percent saying they had very little.
In 2018, only 14 percent have a great deal of trust in the media, with 31 percent having a fair amount, and 24 percent having none at all, with 30 percent saying not much trust.
The media talking heads can try to blame President Trump for the negative light the media is being seen in, but as those numbers at the link above show, the trust Americans have in the media as a whole has been decreasing for decades. The more biased they become over the years, the more they start pushing a political agenda, the more people take note and start distrusting them.
Sean Hannity spends nearly 8 minutes ripping Jim Acosta and CNN's lawsuit in his commentary from Tuesday night. Listen below:(Hannity's comments about Acosta start at about the 3:20 minute mark)
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