Reporters accuse Sarah Sanders of sharing edited video of Acosta-aide exchange

Source: The Hill | November 8, 2018 | Avery Anapol

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is facing accusations that she shared an edited video of the exchange between CNN correspondent Jim Acosta and an administration aide at President Trump’s post-midterm news conference on Wednesday.

Sanders shared the video on her official Twitter account to justify the White House’s decision to revoke Acosta’s press credentials after his tense exchange with Trump.

Sanders cited Acosta’s interaction with the press aide as reason for suspending his “hard pass.”

During the press conference, the aide attempted to take a microphone away from Acosta as he questioned Trump, but he refused to let go. Video shows his arm brushing hers in the process.

“We will … never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern,” Sanders said in the announcement. “This conduct is absolutely unacceptable.”

But dozens of social media users, including several reporters and political analysts, said that the video Sanders shared zooms in on the moment of contact, and appears to have been sped up to make the moment appear more aggressive.

Matt Dornic, CNN’s vice president of communications and digital partnerships, said it was “absolutely shameful” for Sanders to share the video. 

“History will not be kind to you,” Dornic tweeted.

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  • Discussion
  • Consistent #26330

    Consistent #26334

    Woodcutter #26355

    The guy who “doctored” the video defends himself…

    EVERYDAY #26358

    Trump has to have a steady stream of enemies to rail against and to fire up his base. His favorite whipping boy is Jeff Sessions, but he’s leaving or has left. So now he has to pick a fight with someone and Acosta was handy. Now Trump is putting out an edited video of the encounter to justify revoking credentials of other reporters as well.

    Neither Trump nor Acosta behaved like grownups in this matter, but going into a snit every time a reporter asks questions he doesn’t like and revoking press credentials of certain news targets is not exactly endearing Trump to anyone but his equally all mouth-no substance followers.

    And as far as I can tell from the one version of the video I’ve seen, Acosta did not assault the woman as has been claimed. There is no “inappropriate behavior.” Looks like she was grabbing the microphone and Acosta was just trying to break free.

    I don’t like today’s “journalists” either. I think the news is more fluff, propaganda and lies than actual news. But creating a phony controversy and using it as an excuse to revoke press credentials is tantamount to stifling freedom of the press. It’s also very childish and very Stalin-like. What next? Jail news people? Execute them? Just as there is always going to be speech we don’t like, there will always be pseudo-journalists who will ask questions the president is not going to be fond of. These are things we grownups tolerate as part and parcel of the freedoms we enjoy. But Trump is still a two-year old. He’s just going to continue to blow this episode out of proportion until some serious trouble ensues.

    Consistent #26362

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