What About Jim?
Many in the mainstream media were outraged Thursday when the White House revoked CNN reporter Jim Acosta's press privileges. I believe strongly in a free press and robust reporting on the President, but Mr. Acosta frightens me because he exemplifies why 62% of Americans believe the news is biased, 44% believe the reporting is inaccurate, and 39% believe the news is partisan misinformation (source: Gallup). It gets worse. In a recent poll by left-leaning Axios/Politico, 72% of Americans say traditional news outlets "report news they know to be fake, false, or purposely misleading." This is akin to a majority of Americans saying "McDonalds knowingly and willfully misrepresents rodent meat as all-beef hamburgers" (which would bring the DOJ down on McDonalds like a ton of bricks).
According to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a female White House intern was physically repelled by Acosta when she came to collect the microphone after the President had pointed to another reporter. Watch the clip for yourself: Acosta does push back against the intern - even though it was not the "karate chop" some conservative sites are reporting. In my opinion, Jim Acosta has the right to ask tough questions of President Trump but no right to disrespect the people who work in the White House. I have frequently observed Acosta continuing to bark questions at Sarah Sanders after she has moved on to another reporter. At the very least, Acosta's lack of emotional patience (AKA professionalism) should be addressed by his CNN boss - because he has time and again made himself the story.
The founding fathers intended a free press to protect the governed from those that govern - not launch media darlings. Reporters are being kidnapped, jailed and murdered in other countries; so, how can American journalists presume and portray President Trump as a tinpot despot with straight faces? In fact, Trump behaves like Main Street America's "food critic" and provides a service to an "informed" electorate that is every bit as important as the Fourth Estate's service: the electorate eats what the press dishes out and deserves a powerful entity to critique what is being dished out. Of course, CNN might not share this view. Well, boo-hoo-hoo!
I am an American businessman who sees a fundamental flaw at CNN that prevents it from serving the electorate: its culture is too insular. Because they are clustered in New York and Washington, their anchors and reporters work inside leftist-informed silos and become politically incestuous. This has invited intellectual arrogance (nothing matters outside New York and Washington) and a lack of discipline that borders on recklessness (single-sourcing from an anonymous partisan). Let's call it what it is: poor management.
Imagine a fancy restaurant with a head chef so haughty he blames dissatisfied customers for their middle-class palette: you get my drift, right? 39.9 million people live in the LA, New York and Washington metropolitan areas. In a nation of 329 million people (as of November 6th), that is only 12.1 percent of the total US population. Since the Great Recession (2008), the US population has grown faster in rural areas and emerging suburbs than in mature suburbs and urban cores. This is a strong argument for the mainstream media to disperse its anchors and reporters to where 87.9 percent of their customers (news consumers) live.
The management of the major news outlets should agitate their business cultures: moving away from anti-conservative/anti-traditional solidarity toward consumer-driven service providers. CNN especially must mandate non-partisan, well-researched, fact-based, multi-sourced reporting - plus roundtable discussions that put intellectual curiosity above partisan checkmate. It is one thing to disapprove of Trump's combative comments - and quite another to hate him for pushing back on networks and reporters. Remember, some tyrants take our freedom with a machine gun and others with a fountain pen.
I want this democracy to remain free and its electorate informed. This requires an open and honest press that does not over-report and over-opine the same subjects to infinity and beyond. A partisan feeding frenzy shrouds current events and keeps other important issues out of the national conversation. In other words, today's CNN does not truly serve the electorate. A day will come when the US press is required to bring truth to a crisis or calm an angry mob. The future of America might even depend on it. How sad if that day comes, if nobody listens to CNN.
As for CNN and Jim Acosta, they should be allowed access to the White House - and it doesn't even have to be on Donald Trump's terms. After all, he is but one man and his time in the Oval Office is fleeting. However, CNN and Jim Acosta should respect the presidency (and the time of other reporters) and hit the re-set button on behalf of CNN's viewers and Jim Acosta's fans. Acosta has a job to do and he would be better at it if he exhibited some self-control. In other words, be as professional as Brit Hume and Roger Mudd, dude!