It does seem like such an obvious, blatant (and video supported lie) that it’s absolutely mind boggling that anyone could possibly believe it.
Pro tip: he is a Trump supporter.
Yes, by implication, when you decided the most important thing to highlight here was a trivial error of attribution made by someone on the internet, and not the deliberate attempt by the White House to smear a reporter using doctored footage.
The white house using doctored footage is totally unacceptable, but Acosta was way out of line.
No, he wasn’t, that’s ludicrous. If Acosta had just limply let go of that mike mid-sentence, without getting any questions answered, everybody would have either been disappointed in him and/or would have mocked him for it, depending on their biases. He acted 100% properly and appropriately, even immediately begging for pardon from the person who directly put him in that awkward situation.
If Acosta was out of line, so are many other reporters who question Sanders on an (until recently) almost daily basis. Regularly, after having even a few questions answered, do reporters try to squeeze in another and hold onto to the mic too long. Acosta is being singled out by the right because they don’t like his questions and he makes the Trump admin look bad.
I’m not convinced it wasn’t a specific setup of Jim Acosta, particularly with how resolutely the intern tried to snatch the mike from him, and with the way she immediately looked towards Trump as if to say she tried her best to do what he told her.
Now, if Trump wanted someone to actually physically reposses the mike, I’m sure he would have no problem finding someone more qualified. But if what he wanted to setup was a characteristically lame attempt at a me-too gotcha, then we get what we saw here.
The intern was in a tough spot being directed by POTUS on one hand and on the other, maybe trying not to be a total asshole to Acosta. It’s also a situation where some slight physical contact is not unexpected–Jesus… their arms brushed… Acosta’s a rapist!
I think perhaps the WH uses young female interns for press room mic passing so any physical contact with them can potentially be called sexual harassment/abuse (more easily than if the intern were male).
Do you think anyone at the WH *knew *the video was doctored? It’s pretty subtle stuff. I’ve been a professional video editor for 20 years and I found some parts of the explanation of the doctoring a bit difficult to follow. I doubt Sanders or anyone else knew it was altered.
The White House attempting to smear the reputation of a reporter is pathetic. Period.
Very possibly they didn’t. So where is the retraction from SHS?
See. It doesn’t matter. They all lie now knowing that the only people they have to convince is their idiot supporters.
It’s not like the original unaltered video wasn’t available to them. They could have chosen to upload that copy. For some reason they chose to upload a copy from a third party or they doctored the original themselves.
You may be right. I’m not on the right & think Trump is an national disgrace. But what frustrates me is that too often I see his opponents trying to get down into the mud with him by trying to out-asshole him. I’ll concede that I don’t watch a lot of press conferences, but from my vantage point Acosta was grandstanding & trying to make speech rather than ask legitimate questions. That’s not the purpose of press conferences IMO. YMMV
The trouble is unless you ask a very specific question, most politicians, and Trump in particular, will answer the question s/he wants to answer, often quite far off topic.
Just found out my cousin, who is a computer science prof at the University of Illinois, was on the team that investigated this video.
He just put out a post describing exactly how the doctoring occurred.
Link?
As a journalist and a citizen, I believe you are wrong. We live in a democracy. Our officials work for us. The pool reporters are there to hold the president to account on behalf of the public, not to follow bullshit rules of etiquette made up on the spot for the comfort of the president.
Every journalist should be doing what Acosta was doing at every single opportunity. And what we should be outraged about is the attempt to take the mike from his hand before he was ready to hand it over.
Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. That’s Acosta’s job.
It’s a Facebook post. Not sure how to put it here so everyone can read it.
I’m not sure.
I would say it doesn’t matter that much: it’s negligent to treat anything from Infowars as worthy of coming from the White House. Or would be, in any sane reality.
And, of course, there’s an easy way to fix this in the case of a genuine error. A public apology about sharing a doctored video, and, you know, disavowing Infowars as propagandist bullshit. I won’t be holding my breath.