Media wars

Does CNN Really Have a ‘Cosmopolitan Bias’?

21st Century Wire says…

The war between the White House and CNN continued this week.

During a recent White House press briefing for Trump’s new immigration restriction bill, the RAISE Act, White House adviser Stephen Miller suddenly locked horns with embattled CNN political correspondent Jim Acosta, accusing Acosta and his network of displaying “cosmopolitan bias.”

According to critics, the bill favors English-speaking immigrants over others, as well as special applicant’s status to those who can “financially support themselves.” The bill aims to scale back blanket immigration, and focus instead on a Canadian-style merit-based admissions. 

Critics of CNN have also made a strong case, especially after the dramatic loss in 2016 election, that the news network’s coverage is heavily biased towards east and west coast liberal audiences – effectively shunning what America’s liberal intelligentsia crassly refer to as America’s ‘flyover states’ (predominantly white, rural Midwest and ‘Rustbelt’ states) and blaming this section of the population for the Hillary Clinton’s epic November loss.

When one considers the contempt which CNN commentators and ‘experts’ displayed for American voters throughout the election, the charge of cosmopolitan bias is probably accurate.

Liberal media outlet City Lab described how it saw the initial exchange:

Acosta asked Miller how an immigration policy based on skills comports with the line from The New Colossus. (You know the one: “Give me your tired, your poor/ 

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”) The poem “doesn’t say anything about speaking English or being able to be a computer programmer,” Acosta said.  Miller first observed that the poem was added to the Statue of Liberty much later than its construction, a parry on both the potent symbolism of the poem and the policy at hand. Then, in an act of willful misreading and pearl-clutching, Miller seized on an opening in Acosta’s line of reasoning.

The dialogue continued:

Acosta: This whole notion, they have to learn English before they get to the United States—are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?

Miller: Jim, actually, I have to honestly say: I am shocked at your statement, that you think only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree, that in your mind—this is an amazing moment—that you think only people from Great Britain and Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hard-working immigrants from all over the world. Jim, have you honestly never met an immigrant from another country who speaks English outside of Great Britain and Australia? Is that your personal experience?

Acosta hit back at Miller with tacit accusations of institutional racism, claiming that any immigration control goes against a ‘tradition of US immigration.‘ 

That talking point triggered a fiery exchange between Miller and Acosta. Watch:

Others fired back on Twitter at Acosta’s increasing habit of grandstanding during press briefing:

Acosta has been previously forced to defend his employer’s penchant for running actual fake news stories, most notably the fabricated ‘Trump Dossier’ promoted heavily by CNN and their reporters Jim Sciutto and Evan Perez.

Meanwhile, CNN’s reputation as a news network continues to plummet, with its problems compounding at a time when its parent company, Time Warner, is negotiating a major corporate merger with communications giant AT&T – one of the biggest acquisition deals in media history. Part of the deal might mean selling off the damaged brand of CNN in order to improve the value of the deal. Deadline Hollywood confirmed this recently, stating:

“There are rumblings at the highest executive levels that AT&T’s top executives are considering divesting some Time Warner assets — including news organization CNN and celebrity gossip site TMZ — after they merge.”

Regardless, there will be a shake up at CNN, which may even include the ouster of its now disgraced head, Jeff Zucker.