video-manipulation

Question: What does CNN’s Jim Acosta crave more than anything? If you said “attention,” go to the head of the class. It’s a mystery why the White House has given Acosta way more than that. By yanking his “hard pass” after last week’s press conference (don’t ask who was obnoxious; they all were), Acosta has literally become a federal case. CNN filed suit claiming that its reporter’s First and Fifth Amendment rights were violated. More than a dozen news organizations, including Fox, have filed amicus briefs supporting CNN, and even Trump-friendly Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano has opined that Acosta has a strong case. Mr. Showboat is just where he wants to be — the center of attention — but thanks to President Trump’s gratuitous swipe, he is also a free-press martyr.

Acosta’s technique has been honed for many months — asking questions not to receive answers but to shame. At the November 7 press conference, Acosta rose to “challenge” the president on what he had said about the caravan during the closing days of the campaign. “As you know Mr. President, the caravan was not an invasion. It’s a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the U.S.”

It’s not Acosta’s job to joust with the president over interpretations of words. Leave that to commentators or politicians.

He could have asked the president where he got his information about Middle Eastern terrorists infiltrating into the caravan, or

what his evidence was that there were many criminals in its ranks.

He might have asked what purpose U.S. troops would serve at the border in light of the Posse Comitatus Act.

He could have asked whether the president thought any of the migrants might have colorable asylum claims.

Instead, he demanded: “Do you think you demonized immigrants?”

Frankly, if Acosta thinks the president demonized immigrants, let him write an op-ed. A press conference is supposed to be about eliciting information. Acosta doesn’t practice journalism so much as performance art.

.. The White House handled this mosquito in about the worst possible way. The president could have declined to call on him. Having called on him and been offended by his tone, the president could have refused to take the bait, saying “You might want to run for office yourself. In the meantime, I’ll call on someone who wants to ask a question, not stage a debate.”

.. Instead, in a fit of petulance, the White House revoked Acosta’s press pass. This is Trump not understanding the import of the office he holds. When Trump the businessman took swipes at press coverage he disliked, it was pique. When the president of the United States does it, it smacks of authoritarianism. Admittedly, the press corps are a high-strung bunch, but this White House

flirts with intimidation,

calling down contempt for them at rallies,

deriding them as the “enemy of the people” (which is an echo of Stalin,

whether Trump recognizes it or not), threatening to sic the FTC on the owner of the Washington Post, and elevating the likes of Gateway Pundit.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who cannot be much more honest than her boss and hope to keep her job, issued a tweet explaining that Acosta was exiled because he had accosted the intern who attempted to remove the mic from his hands. “President Trump believes in a free press and expects and welcomes tough questions of him and his Administration. We will, however, never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern. . . .”

Anyone who watched the exchange — or looked it up on YouTube — knew that this was risible. Yet Sanders said it anyway and even released a video that had been slightly doctored (by speeding it up) to make it seem that Acosta had been physically swatting at the intern.

Within a few days, Sanders changed her tune, claiming instead that the White House cannot run a smooth press conference if reporters hog the mic. But let’s pause to consider where this White House has settled. Covering up for an intemperate retaliation against a journalist, the spokesman for the president of the United States attempted to rewrite the history that we had all seen with our own eyes just days before.

COMMENTS

Ms. Sanders would be a great fit in the Ministry of Truth.

a frame-by-frame comparison with an Associated Press video of the same incident shows that the one tweeted by Sanders appears to have been altered to speed up Acosta’s arm movement as he touches the intern’s arm, according to Abba Shapiro, an independent video producer who examined the footage at AP’s request.

.. Earlier, Shapiro noticed that frames in the tweeted video were frozen to slow down the action, allowing it to run the same length as the AP one.

The tweeted video also does not have any audio, which Shapiro said would make it easier to alter. It’s also unlikely the differences could be explained by technical glitches or by video compression — a reduction in a video’s size to enable it to play more smoothly on some sites — because the slowing of the video and the acceleration that followed are “too precise to be an accident,” said Shapiro, who trains instructors to use video editing software.

.. Sanders, who hasn’t said where the tweeted video came from, noted that it clearly shows Acosta made contact with the intern. In her statement announcing Acosta’s suspension, she said the White House won’t tolerate “a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job.”While the origin of the manipulated video is unclear, its distribution marked a new low for an administration that has been criticized for its willingness to mislead.

.. “As visual journalists, we know that manipulating images is manipulating truth,” said Whitney Shefte, the association’s president. “It’s deceptive, dangerous and unethical. Knowingly sharing manipulated images is equally problematic, particularly when the person sharing them is a representative of our country’s highest office with vast influence over public opinion.”

.. CNN has labeled Sanders’ characterization of Acosta’s exchange with the intern as a lie. Its position has been supported by witnesses including Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason, who was next to Acosta during the news conference and tweeted that he did not see Acosta place his hands on the White House employee. Rather, he said he saw him holding on to the microphone as she reached for it.

“The irony of this White House video involving Jim Acosta is that if it is found to be doctored, it will show the administration to be doing what it accuses the news media of doing — engaging in fake information,” said Aly Colon, a professor in journalism ethics at Washington & Lee University.

.. The New York Times editorialized in favor of restoring Acosta’s pass, saying it signaled Trump’s view that asking hard questions disqualifies reporters from attending briefings. The newspaper said that if Sanders was so offended by physical contact, “what did she have to say when her boss praised as ‘my kind of guy’ Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana, who was sentenced to anger management classes and community service for body-slamming a Guardian reporter last spring?”

.. During Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, the Secret Service denied clearance to Robert Sherrill, a reporter for The Nation who had gotten into physical fights with government officials. During the George W. Bush presidency, Trude Feldman, who worked for various news outlets, was suspended for 90 days after security cameras recorded her looking through a press aide’s desk late one night. In the 1970s, President Nixon tried to get Washington Post reporters banned from the White House.

Despite losing his White House pass, Acosta is expected to travel to Paris this weekend to cover Trump’s trip to meet with world leaders.

openpolitics.com

Making Acosta a Federal Case

Expert: Acosta video distributed by White House was doctored