What Jim Acosta's Latest 'BS' Attack on Fox News Tells Us About Jim Acosta

CNN’s Jim Acosta got a lot of attention during President Trump’s four years in office due to his frequent and oftentimes deliberate sparring bouts with the former president and his press secretaries. Though it was obvious he was engaging in performative journalism in the briefing room to elevate his profile, he was hailed in Journalism World and on the left as a vital media figure for The Resistance™.

But about a week before Joe Biden was inaugurated, CNN announced some lineup changes. Among them was the news that Acosta, who was their chief White House correspondent, would no longer be on the White House beat. His role was switched to chief domestic correspondent/weekend news anchor.

Last month, he began hosting “Newsroom” with a 3-hour timeslot on Saturdays and a 2-hour timeslot on Sundays. Because he has a lot of time to fill, Acosta spends a considerable amount of time doing what a lot of other hosts at the network do: Bash Fox News, with Tucker Carlson being his primary target.

For two weekends in a row last month, Acosta took aim at Carlson by smearing him as a KKK member without the sheet.

But this past weekend’s attack on Fox News was broader, labeling them the “bull sh*t factory” after two erroneous reports – one about Kamala Harris’ book allegedly being distributed at the border and one about an alleged Biden plan to encourage meatless meals to combat climate change – had to be retracted. Here’s what he said Saturday:

Now, you may want to laugh this off. As the old saying goes, a lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is still lacing up its boots, but the lies these days are moving at the speed of light while spreading so much darkness. Take, for example, the uproar over this “New York Post” story that claimed that copies of a children’s book were being given to migrant kids in their welcome kits. That tale from the border didn’t just border on B.S. This was USDA grade A bullsh*t.

And the reporter who wrote the story resigned claiming she was forced to make it up. But the damage was done, pumped out over the airwaves at the bullsh*t factory also known as Fox News.

Watch:

Jim Acosta refers to Fox News as “the bullshit factory.”
pic.twitter.com/DBb1T8tsi6

— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) May 2, 2021

He promoted his rant on his Twitter page as well, because he wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it:

ICYMI… The three B’s from last week: burgers, books and BS. https://t.co/prW3mBBlBh

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 2, 2021

Acosta’s criticism was part of a broader one about how “lies” in the media can be harmful to society, but while there’s some validity to that point, there were three big problems with his rant.

For starters, the messenger. Acosta as a central media figure for CNN lecturing another news network about “lies” in their reporting is the very definition of the pot calling the kettle black.

Secondly, there are big differences between news stories that later turn out to be false where corrections end up being made/noted versus stories where the lies keep being repeated over and over again even after they were debunked. CNN should know this very well, considering they continued to peddle lies about the Trump/Russia collusion hoax for the entirety of Trump’s presidency even after it was concluded that there was no evidence of collusion.

Third, Fox News walked the reports back on-air, which is exactly what news organizations should do when they get a story wrong. How often do you see this happen at CNN, though? The answer is that you very rarely do. Remember, this the same network that ran with the bogus Nick Sandmann “racism” narrative and then later had to settle a lawsuit with him because their claims weren’t true. The same stories are still up, but some of the headlines have been changed and editor notes added – well after the fact.

His dishonest rant says a helluva lot more about Jim Acosta and CNN – with none of it being good – than it does about Fox News.

The bottom line here is that the self-awareness level of Acosta’s diatribe against a rival network was at zero. CNN has been one of the most willfully dishonest peddlers of misinformation going back to well before Trump was elected president (they were called “Clinton News Network” during the Clinton years), and they got much worse during his time in office. They’re still peddling misinformation now, except in this case it’s not in an effort to undercut a president’s administration but instead to prop one up, with Acosta being one of their chief offenders.

Remember this, too: “Newsroom” is not supposed to be “opinion” programming, but yet Acosta’s rants and those of some of the others that host it at other times prove that that’s exactly what it is – which brings up another point. Can anyone name a program on CNN where opinions are not expressed by supposedly objective anchors? I can’t think of a single one, which further proves the point that CNN is not a news organization unless one views Pravda-like “reporting” as legitimate news.

(Hat tip: Twitchy)