Acosta OUT at CNN: Requiem for a Hack

As part of my research for my book on political buffoonery, I came across Alexander Pope’s The Dunciad, a mock-heroic poem ridiculing “hack” artists; people who wrote anything for money and who possessed not a scrap of integrity. It’s a theme that echoes throughout the ages of media, from those “Grub Street” scribes to America’s “yellow journalism” to today’s ever-present 24/7 news cycle of pundits, politicos and prognosticators. 

I can’t help but think of Pope and this legacy of media hackery upon reading the news that another modern-day hack, CNN’s Jim Acosta, will be exiting the network.

End of the Era of Trump Derangement at CNN

In a way, it feels like the end of an era (or, error, if you like!) of hackery at the network. Recent years have seen a purge of buffoons that plagued the anchor chairs at the once venerable network. Acosta is but the latest exit in a line of hacks like Lemon and Cuomo who saw their heyday during the rise and fall with the first term of President Donald Trump, with only Trump rising again. 

Among all the hacks at CNN that have come and gone, perhaps Acosta will be most inextricably linked to President Trump. In his book, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America, Acosta responded to accusations that his coverage of President Donald Trump was biased by proclaiming, “neutrality for the sake of neutrality doesn’t really serve us in the age of Trump.”

What an eloquent way to justify his intentional biased towards, and downright hatred of all things Trump. From the start of the Trump era, Acosta remained perpetually outraged at, and even threatened by, Trump’s success, as evidenced by this bitter passage he penned:

I’ll never forget what I saw on the campaign trail and what I have witnessed covering the Trump presidency. Even now, more than two years into his presidency, it’s still shocking to remember Trump, as a presidential candidate, saying he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and get away with it. It’s still shocking to remember him… describing Mexican undocumented immigrants as “rapists -and still escaping the kind of accountability that would have knocked anyone else out of the race.

As a second-generation Italian American, I know a vendetta when I see one.

For his part, President Trump was equal to the task in matching Acosta’s poisoned microphone. In January of 2017, after CNN had picked up Buzzfeed’s (remember Buzzfeed!) infamously inaccurate story about a Russian dossier containing salacious and unverified claims, Trump snubbed Acosta, calling his network “fake news.” The rest, as they say, is history.

Acosta Was a Throwback… But Not in a Good Way

Acosta’s seemingly willful inaccuracies and theatrics in the White House Press Corps during the first Trump term was reminiscent the “journalism of action” that defined the days of yellow journalist William Randolph Hearst. It is a time commonly associated with malpractice in newsgathering. Sensationalism, lies by omission, straw man arguments, increased hyperbole, and fact-shading are among the tools employed by hacks in creating an “aesthetic fallacy;’ a set of selected facts used to build into a “beautiful story” rather than facts functional to empirical truths.

In Acosta’s case, his “beautiful story” portrays himself as a crusader for truth against a president who doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Like the yellow journalists of their day, Acosta became the story by only telling part of the story. He did so while proclaiming the mantle of a fighter for freedom of the press and, therefore, a champion of the people. But in reality, Acosta was more like the scribe-for-hire out to make himself and his network more marketable, and, thus, richer by catering to one side of the political continuum.

In crusading against Trump, Acosta became a celebrity journalist. Or, as Frank Miele once put it:

Acosta is just one more self-important reporter who gives a bad name to the hard-working journalists who take their job more seriously than their haircut.

When Trump left the White House, so did Acosta’s influence. CNN was on defense for the Biden-Harris administration, and there was no need for an attack dog anymore. The network effectively domesticated Acosta behind a morning anchor desk.

CNN Moves on from Acosta

But with the return of Trump, perhaps Acosta saw a return of opportunity. Instead of perpetually relitigating past misadventures in a failed effort to prevent a second Trump term, Acosta probably saw the return of Trump as a return to his glory day. He returned to his pugnacious fixation on Trump, railing against guests in the first week of his new administration about pardons and rhetoric like it was 2017 all over again. Just like old times. 

Except, it wasn’t old times. It was 2025; and CNN’s chief executive, Mark Thompson, had other plans. Instead of doubling down on CNN’s approach to Trump during his first term where Acosta was the tip of the network’s spear, CNN decided to relegate Acosta to an overnight anchor seat.

Maybe it was a legitimate offer of a different opportunity. Or maybe it was a nod that the American people had spoken, and that Trump won. After all, CNN’s own polling saw public trust in Acosta’s blood rival at all-time highs. Trotting out Acosta would be a reminder of times CNN wants everyone to forget and a signal to the viewing public that CNN had not learned the lessons of 2024.

CNN’s “aesthetic fallacy” had shifted. Acosta’s had not.

Will Acosta Sink or Swim in the Marketplace of Ideas?

So Acosta seems to be moving on; his departure akin to the fall of the last rampart of a bygone era. His exit signaling the end of a chapter of media history, and the beginning of a new one that sees President Donald Trump triumphant over Acosta and his ilk.  

Maybe we’ll see Acosta pop up on an outlet like NewsNation and join his pal Chris Cuomo in decrying media bias. Maybe he’ll join MSNBC, where relics of the media war against Trump are still licking their wounds. He created a Substack already. Who knows where he will ultimately settle.

But wherever he goes, his failed legacy of righteous self-importance surely follows.