Acosting Acosta

Most disturbing to me about today's attack on Acosta was the feeble effort made by one journalist to defend Acosta, and he willingness of the rest to allow the topic to stray. Once he was called an enemy of the people the press should have pressed Trump on the issue.
Some things can't be said. A president cannot be allowed to call the press the enemy of the people lest it become a normative event, as it seems to have, and one that those who for reasons that dwell in a fetid cultural quagmire support Trump are encouraged by.

Wouldn’t you love to see a walkout?

Why not?

While anyone is free to criticise the press, it is really quite astounding to see and hear a president behaving in this manner during a press conference. If this is how he behaves when confronted with an awkward question from the press, is it also how he behaves when dealing with great matters of state? Appalling/astonishing.

I'm more astonished by those who refuse to refuse his behavior. The press is craven. They refuse to break protocol. Yesterday a situation occurred that was screaming out for a break in protocol, a walkout, as suggested by #2, or a refusal to move on until Trump apologized to Acosta.

Yes, they seem to be unequipped to handle this new reality. They should also not be reporting on him the way that they do, repeating his lies. They're operating under assumed decorum or protocol or whatever, but it no longer applies.

The idea of walking out hardly ever occurs to anyone anymore. Trump likes to double down--those in the Press should do the same. I'm always for quid pro quo. Fuck with me--I'll fuck with you--somehow I'll find a way. But it's also a different kind of news media today. Newspapers apart from a few behemoths like the NY Times and Washington Post--there's no one reading them anymore. It's all either internet or 24-7 TV news all day everyday and it's just all so corporatized. Everything is so soft--there's no real edginess to any of it and a clown like Sean Hannity goes around saying he's a journalist. All the anchors look so sharp and spiffy and like they've come off the walkway of a fashion show or out of a soap opera. I don't find a lot of this relatable so I have a hard time watching it for any length of time.

To play devil's advocate, might they have been thinking a story is happening and their instinct was to stay and cover it? Their bosses might not take it well if they left and missed a story that was broadcast/published by other outlets and they missed it. It would take enormous hutzpah to leave a presidential briefing, even though Trump mightily deserved it. I don't know if I would have the courage to jeopardize my job.

>8 mamzel: Then the next reporter called on should repeat Acosta's question etc. until it gets an answer.

#9--that would work too.

White House defends doctored Trump-Acosta clip used to justify reporter's ban (Guardian)

Press secretary stood by decision to revoke CNN reporter’s access and sharing video edited to make his actions more aggressive

The Acosta affair: An unpopular opinion (BBC)

>8 mamzel: That's exactly the type of thinking that leads to hesitation and failure to act. There are times when when standard quotidian thought needs short-circuiting. No offense intended, but I have no doubt about what I would have done. (Then again, I had lost a few jobs in my day.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/46147166

An interesting different opinion. Acosta had his allotted question, and a follow-up and another three. His time was up.

But yes I'd have liked the next reporter to have asked the same question.

Fox News backs CNN’s lawsuit against Trump administration

Fox News President Jay Wallace said in a statement that the network intends to file an amicus brief with a U.S. District Court in the lawsuit.

"FOX News supports CNN in its legal effort to regain its White House reporter's press credential. We intend to file an amicus brief with the U.S. District Court. Secret Service passes for working White House journalists should never be weaponized," Wallace said.