CNN Takes Trump To Court: Is He Winning The War Against Fake News? from Collective Evolution
By
Richard Enos
Richard Enos
In Brief
- The Facts:A heated
exchange between Donald Trump and CNN reporter Jim Acosta at a White
House Press Briefing has led to Acosta losing his press pass,
accusations of video doctoring, and a
lawsuit claiming White House violations of the 1st and 5th amendments. - Reflect On:Does this battle represent a flashpoint in the larger battle between the Alliance and the Deep State? If so, what is our role in this?
Once
a model of journalistic integrity and governmental decorum, the White
House press conference seems to have devolved into a verbal street brawl
of mutual disrespect between President Donald Trump and Mainstream
Media. But at a deeper level, it has become Ground Zero for the battle
for our collective perception of reality.
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The notion that Mainstream Media is in
the business of ‘framing’ a perception of events to suit a particular
agenda is something that the public is beginning to awaken to in larger
numbers. Now this is not to say that the President does not frame a
perception of events as well. We have long known that all politicians do
this. The difference is that President Trump does it to look good, be
popular, and ultimately to be able to do what he believes are positive
things for American citizens. The agenda behind the Mainstream Media is
the destruction of American sovereignty and the implementation of a
global power structure of enslavement. If we look at the ‘Acosta
Incident’ through this lens, then an understanding of exactly why this
is happening at this time comes into focus.
The Acosta Incident
The ‘Acosta Incident’ essentially
involves CNN Journalist Jim Acosta asking questions to President Trump,
being told by the President that he is done with Acosta and is moving on
to the next reporter, and Acosta resisting attempts on the part of a
young White House intern to take the microphone from him, actually using
his arm to physically impede her arm from reaching over to take the
microphone. Here is a full video of the incident:
As we can see in the video, the
journalists (not only Acosta but the subsequent one) are spending most
of their airtime building a narrative, finishing their statements with
a slanted yes/no question which they already know the answer to.
They try to characterize a given situation (i.e. Acosta saying that the
‘caravan’ is not an ‘invasion’) and basically trying to refute the
President’s characterization. There is no real attempt here to inquire,
to get new information, to listen to what the President has to say. And
of course the President also replies with his own narrative-building.
In a way, this has long been the dynamic
in White House press conferences, but never in history have journalists
tried to single-mindedly frame a narrative in such a combative way. No
doubt one could look at Donald Trump’s direct assault on Mainstream news
as ‘Fake News,’ it has added much fuel to the fire. Objectively
speaking, though, it would be hard to argue that Jim Acosta has not
crossed a line of propriety in physically restraining a young woman from
taking the microphone from him at the President’s request.
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Sarah Sanders’ Tweet
It cannot come as a shock to
the objective observer that the White House believes it had grounds to
revoke Jim Acosta’s press pass. In this CNN article,
which denies any wrongdoing on the part of CNN or any apology for Jim
Acosta, we see the narrative-building verbiage in full regalia:
CNN said in a statement that Acosta has the network’s full support. The revocation of his pass “was done in retaliation for his challenging questions at today’s press conference,” the statement said. “In an explanation, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders lied. She provided fraudulent accusations and cited an incident that never happened. This unprecedented decision is a threat to our democracy and the country deserves better.”
I’m sorry–is there anybody reading this
article that is buying the claim that the revocation of his pass “was
done in retaliation for his challenging questions at today’s press
conference.”? Wow, not even a MENTION of Acosta’s physical contact with
the intern. A tweet by White House Press Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders, without audio, makes graphically clear what the White House,
and, it must be said, any objective observer, would highlight as the
reason his pass was revoked:
Now as we will see, the ‘source’ of her video, which shows 4
consecutive close-ups to drive the point home, is notable. According to this Wired article,The video posted by Sanders appears identical to a video shared two hours earlier by Paul Joseph Watson, an editor-at-large at the right-wing media site InfoWars. Both videos were edited in the same way and had no sound. While the White House hasn’t responded to inquiries about the source of the video posted by Sanders, it seems reasonable to say that the chance the two videos were created independently is extraordinarily low.
Claims The Video Was ‘Doctored’
Not long after the tweet, claims that
the White House was using a ‘doctored’ video, or that they had
‘doctored’ it themselves, began to pop up widely across Mainstream
Media. Video experts were being called on to explain a frame-dropping or
frame-pausing technique that was said to have made
Acosta’s wrist restraining the intern’s arm look more like a ‘karate
chop.’ Here is one of many videos up now explaining this:
And here is Infowars’ Paul Joseph Watson’s reaction to the claims that he doctored the video:
Even as a video editor myself, I don’t
know whether this video was doctored or not. Either one of the arguments
above seem to have some logic, and it would take me a lot more time and
effort to get to the bottom of it, time and effort I certainly don’t
want to spend. Why? Because it really doesn’t matter.
While it would be possible that Watson
would go through the trouble of doctoring a video to have a slight,
barely perceptible effect of seeming more aggressive, the fact of the
matter is, as Watson points out in his video,
‘The media invented a giant conspiracy theory to distract from a real controversy…Sarah Sanders was right. Jim Acosta put his hands on a woman. He used his strength to overpower her, and that’s clearly seen in the video. Does that mean he assaulted her? No. It doesn’t. But he clearly used his hand, his wrist, and his arm to push her away…don’t take my word for it, go and watch the footage yourself and come to your own conclusions.’
CNN continues to reference Sanders’
tweet as ‘a distorted video clip of the press conference that didn’t
show the complete back-and-forth. The same video had been posted by an
InfoWars personality two hours earlier.’ To persuade those people who
don’t investigate all the facts and rely on the validity of the
narrative, these kinds of phrases and talking points are essential.
CNN Sues The White House
Now, it looks like the battle of
narratives is headed for court. CNN has filed a lawsuit against the
President and top aides for banning Acosta, believing his 1st and 5th
amendment rights are being violated.
In an interview on Tuesday morning, [attorney Ted] Boutrous said CNN tried to resolve the matter privately, but the White House was not responsive so “we really had no choice but to sue.” “We didn’t want to have to go to court. We wanted to just report the news,” he said. “Mr. Acosta wants to report the news. CNN wants to report the news.”
If the full clip of Jim Acosta’s tactics
and line of questioning are those of a journalist who ‘just wants to
report the news,’ I must be missing something. Of course it should come
as no surprise that CNN is using all of its rhetorical devices to
characterize itself as the victim here. But more and more, those
speaking on behalf of the Alliance are also firing up their rhetoric to
continue to pound away at the ‘fake news’ characterization of mainstream
media, trying to reveal to the public the hidden agenda
behind machinations like those of Acosta. Here is the response of Sarah
Sanders and the White House to the lawsuit:
“We have been advised that CNN has filed a complaint challenging the suspension of Jim Acosta’s hard pass. This is just more grandstanding from CNN, and we will vigorously defend against this lawsuit.
CNN, who has nearly 50 additional hard pass holders, and Mr. Acosta is no more or less special than any other media outlet or reporter with respect to the First Amendment. After Mr. Acosta asked the President two questions—each of which the President answered—he physically refused to surrender a White House microphone to an intern, so that other reporters might ask their questions. This was not the first time this reporter has inappropriately refused to yield to other reporters.
The White House cannot run an orderly and fair press conference when a reporter acts this way, which is neither appropriate nor professional. The First Amendment is not served when a single reporter, of more than 150 present, attempts to monopolize the floor. If there is no check on this type of behavior it impedes the ability of the President, the White House staff, and members of the media to conduct business.”
This is an interesting fight in that it
seems like a flash point whose outcome might indicate the relative
strength of the two heavyweights, the Alliance fronted by Donald Trump,
and the Deep State as mouthpieced by Mainstream Media. It’s hard to know
who is more up for this battle, to be honest. It will be interesting to
see how this particular battle plays out.
The Takeaway
As usual, our discernment is required
for sifting through these battles of conflicting narratives. The more we
are able to find where the truth lies, and the more people that gain
this power of discernment, the less we will have to live through the
drama that is playing out in front of us. Living our lives in truth is
our ultimate destination.
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