ACOSTA VISITS POINT PARK
CNN White House chief correspondent Jim Acosta visits Point Park
When CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta speaks at Point Park University’s Pittsburgh Playhouse, Downtown, on Thursday, there will be scant middle ground.
“People either love or hate Acosta, but there’s no doubt that he has been an outspoken representative for the public’s interest in knowing what’s going on in the White House and in Washington,” said Andrew Conte, director of Point Park’s Center for Media Innovation.
“He served this role in the Obama White House, and he’s doing it again now with the Trump administration. The biggest difference is that President Trump has taken a much more vocal and aggressive stance against the media, and against CNN and Jim Acosta personally.”
Acosta’s appearance for the university’s Media Innovators Speakers Series “is an opportunity for me to relay to the audience, ‘This is what it’s like, being a White House correspondent during a Donald Trump presidency,’” he said in a recent phone interview.
The CNN reporter was the early poster boy for the president’s rage against the media during the 2016 campaign. He’s been called a “rude, terrible” person and had his press credentials revoked — CNN filed suit, and they were eventually restored — and in one memorable incident, he was accused of striking a White House intern after a doctored video went viral.
Acosta’s career path to CNN included television and radio before he landed at CBS News. His book, “The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America,” outlines any number of big changes to his job of covering the White House.
“We’ve had some pretty difficult challenges, like I’ve never seen before as a journalist,” he said. Homemade pipe bombs were sent to CNN offices as well as to prominent Democratic figures in 2018 by Cesar Sayoc, who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
During that period, Acosta said, he received “some nine or 10 death threats [directed] at me; one of them was posted on Twitter saying, ‘You’re the enemy of America, you’re next,’ with a picture of a decapitated goat’s head.
“So I think what the administration and the president have failed to understand, and appreciate, is that words matter. What they say matters.”
On a less dramatic scale, the media continues to navigate a new, more hostile climate. CNN’s Manu Raju was called a “liberal hack” when he approached Arizona Republican Sen. Martha McSally for a quote earlier this month, and NPR’s Michele Kelemen was told she could not be part of the press team traveling with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The latter also famously upbraided NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly after an interview and demanded she prove she could identify Ukraine on an unmarked map. Kelly, in a New York Times op-ed piece, responded, “For the record, I did. That’s not the point.”
In Acosta’s opinion, attacks on the media have led to even more careful reporting. Many journalists, he said, “are so trapped in what other people want to be a box …. I think we have to err on the side of the truth, even if it is a painful truth.”
But Acosta said he has heard encouragement from all sides, including some from the conservative media: “They say, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing.’ So what choice do we have?”
Conte said the speakers series has drawn three kinds of patrons: young people/students (who receive discounted tickets), professionals and the general public. He said he expects this week’s appearance by Acosta to attract more people from the public. As part of the series’ mission to the public, it can provide “opportunities to understand the role of a free press and to hear directly from newsmakers.”
When speaking at institutions of higher learning, Acosta said, his message has changed. “I used to say to college students who wanted to come into the business, ‘Don’t do it. You’re going to miss your weekends and your holidays and your mother’s birthday. You won’t be home for Christmas. Your parents won’t be very happy, your family won’t be very happy.
“But now I tell young journalists to stay in the business and keep at it. Because we need reinforcements.”
The event begins at 7 p.m. Tickets: $40-$65; www.pittsburghplayhouse.com or 412-392-8000.