Media reporter Oliver Darcy broke the news in his invaluable “Status” newsletter on Monday night: Jim Acosta is leaving CNN.
Here’s Oliver:
The anchor, I'm told, signaled to associates in private conversations over the weekend that he intends to depart the network after its chief executive, Mark Thompson, booted him from the morning programming lineup — a move that conspicuously coincided with Donald Trump's return to power.
CNN brass, as we first reported earlier this month, decided to strip Acosta of his 10am show, which he has anchored to great ratings success over the last 11 months, at times even seeing higher viewership than programs in the channel's prime time bloc. Acosta was instead offered the less-than-desirable option of anchoring a show from midnight until 2am ET. CNN pitched the gig to Acosta as anchoring during prime time on the West Coast and said he could move to Los Angeles to host the program. But the reality is the program would have aired at a time in which cable news viewership is at its lowest levels.
When Mark Thompson made this “offer,” it was clearly aimed at either sidelining Acosta within the CNN firmament or, effectively, firing him without saying those words.
Why?
Because Acosta rose to prominence as one of the most aggressive and confrontational reporters covering the first term of Donald Trump. The two clashed repeatedly over the four years Trump was in the White House.
“CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them,” Trump once told Acosta. “You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN.”
Acosta became a hero to liberals and the anti-Trump crowd. And hated by the MAGA movement. At the time, he was one of CNN’s most recognizable faces.
But, times have changed. And CNN — under Thompson and Warner Brothers Discovery boss David Zaslav — is now focused on trying to re-brand the network as slightly more Trump-friendly or centrist.
Acosta’s removal then is rightly understood as a piece of a broader movement of the legacy media to accommodate Trump — or at least take a far-less adversarial tack in covering his second term.
The decisions by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times not to endorse a candidate in the 2024 race, the reversals by Meta on fact-checking standards, ABC’s decision to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by the president — these are all sprung from the same vein of thinking.
Which is why, now more than ever before, you need independent journalists who aren’t tied — financially — to any big media operation. People like me who are able to speak their mind whenever and however they like.
But this only works if you are willing to invest in this sort of independent journalism. Which is why I hope today is the day you become a paid subscriber to this newsletter. it’s $6 a month or $60 for the year.
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