A former CNN producer said on Friday the words that many of his colleagues in the mainstream news media won’t dare utter: The cable network’s White House correspondent is giving journalists a bad name.
“On a day journalists could honor the memory of fellow reporters tragically killed due to a deranged person with a vendetta going back years, Acosta tries to shift the blame to Trump, thus validating many Americans’ feelings about the Acela Media (that existed long before Trump),” tweeted Steve Krakauer.
“Truly an embarrassment, on multiple levels. Jim Acosta’s self-serving antics give all good journalists a bad name,” Krakauer added.
Krakauer was commenting on Acosta’s outburst at the end of President Donald Trump’s White House remarks about the significant economic progress made in the six months since Congress approved — and he signed into law in December 2017 — a huge package of tax cuts and related reforms.
“Mr. President, will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people,” Acosta shouted from the back of the room, in a manner reminiscent of left-wing activists’ shouting down conservative speakers on college campuses in recent years.
Acosta is frequently seen acting the same way during White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ daily media briefings.
Krakauer joined CNN in 2010 as a digital producer for “Piers Morgan Tonight.” He was promoted the following year to senior digital producer for CNN/U.S., a position specifically created for him; it also put him in charge of the cable network’s Twitter account.
Then-CNN senior vice president Bart Feder said Krakauer was promoted because he “has done a superb job in maximizing digital and social media opportunities to drive audience and engagement for the show.”
Krakauer is now content market director at Commerce House in Dallas, Texas.
His Twitter feed displays multiple examples of the kind of fact-checking observations that characterize credible journalism, regardless of its source.
Related: Sarah Sanders Roasts Jim Acosta Over ‘Russia Fever’
In another Friday tweet, Krakauer noted the double standard that shapes most reporting on how Trump deals with the mainstream news media and how his predecessor did.
Obama administration charges more journalists with a crime for doing their job than all admins combined = love letter cover of @NYMag, journalists openly yearning for Obama to return.
Trump tweets insults = 'an existential threat to a free press, fascism, Nazi Germany is here..'
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) June 29, 2018
In a tweet earlier in the week, Krakauer — perhaps only half-facetiously — offered Trump a suggestion on how to narrow down his list of 25 potential Supreme Court nominees to just one:
President Trump should split the 20 names on his SCOTUS list into two teams, have them face-off in judge competitions and law precedent tests until only one remains, and Trump declares “you’re hired…to the Supreme Court.”
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) June 28, 2018
And a June 18 tweet, Krakauer looked back at the 2014 crisis during the Obama administration, when thousands of unaccompanied children crossed the border:
It was heartbreaking to see the result of ineffective policy in 2014. And it was barely being covered in the media. Certainly not at the level it is now. And many of the same players being demonized were done there helping. Like Ted Cruz: 3/ pic.twitter.com/LUgjQ00I3M
— Steve Krakauer (@SteveKrak) June 18, 2018
Prior to his years at CNN, Krakauer was an editor at TVNewser and Mediaite.
He was also a page at NBC.
Senior editor Mark Tapscott can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage image: Jim Acosta, CC BY-SA 2.0, by Gage Skidmore)
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