Jim Acosta took his ongoing meltdown to new heights this week, appearing before a pretend Senate committee in California to complain that the real problem with American media is that Trump supporters might start working at news networks. The former CNN personality, who has spent years styling himself as a resistance fighter in a press pass, sat before Adam Schiff — yes, that Adam Schiff — to deliver what he apparently thought was a profound warning about the state of journalism.
“Here is the breaking news,” Acosta declared with the gravitas of a man who truly believes his own press releases. “The news is broken.” He went on to claim that the Trump administration has led America closer to having state-run media like Russia or China, apparently forgetting that he spent four years on national television saying exactly this without any government interference whatsoever.
The setting itself tells you everything you need to know about the seriousness of this spectacle. Schiff, now in the Senate minority, held what he called a “hearing” in California — roughly 2,300 miles from the actual United States Capitol. He has no authority to conduct official Senate business, no subpoena power, and no jurisdiction over media regulation. What he does have is a camera crew and an endless appetite for performative outrage.
Acosta’s specific complaint reveals more about him than about the media landscape he claims to analyze. He’s upset that “partisan hacks” are running CBS News now, and worried that more “partisan hacks” might be hired by CNN if the Paramount-Warner merger goes through. The irony of Jim Acosta — Jim Acosta! — complaining about partisan hacks infiltrating journalism is almost too perfect to believe. This is the same reporter who turned White House press briefings into theatrical confrontations, who made himself the story rather than covering it, who treated opposition to Trump as a moral crusade rather than a professional assignment.
The deeper insecurity peeking through Acosta’s testimony is his lingering bitterness about losing his press credentials during Trump’s first term. He still can’t seem to accept that the administration had every right to decide who gets access to the White House, that press passes are a privilege rather than a constitutional entitlement. His removal wasn’t an attack on the First Amendment — it was a consequence of repeatedly grandstanding instead of reporting.
What’s fascinating about Acosta’s performance is how perfectly it captures the establishment media’s inability to understand why they’ve lost credibility with half the country. He genuinely seems to believe that the problem is insufficient ideological purity in newsrooms, that what American journalism really needs is more reporters who think exactly like him. The possibility that trust in media has collapsed because outlets like CNN spent years treating political opposition as moral failure never seems to cross his mind.
The comparison to state-run media in Russia and China is particularly absurd coming from someone who spent the Biden years asking softball questions and accepting non-answers without follow-up. American media isn’t state-controlled — it’s consensus-controlled, dominated by a narrow ideological bandwidth that treats deviation as heresy. The “oligarchs” Acosta warns about aren’t government censors — they’re the corporate executives and foundation donors who fund the same predictable narratives year after year.
Schiff’s participation in this theater of the absurd makes perfect sense. Here’s a man who spent years promising evidence of Russian collusion that never materialized, who read false claims into the congressional record during impeachment proceedings, who has never met a camera he didn’t like. Putting him in charge of a hearing about media integrity is like putting Bernie Madoff in charge of financial ethics.
The real story here isn’t Acosta’s complaints about media ownership — it’s the desperation of a generation of journalists who built their careers on opposition to Trump and now find themselves without a clear role. The resistance media that flourished from 2016 to 2024 has no obvious purpose when the enemy they defined themselves against is back in power. Do they pivot to covering the administration straight? Do they find new ways to maintain their audience’s outrage? Or do they hold fake hearings in California and pretend that still matters?
Acosta has chosen the third option, and the results speak for themselves. His testimony wasn’t journalism — it was therapy, a public processing session for people who can’t accept that their moment in the spotlight has passed. The news isn’t broken because Trump supporters might get jobs at CNN. The news is broken because people like Jim Acosta decided that their political preferences were more important than their professional responsibilities.
If he wants to understand why Americans don’t trust the media anymore, he might start by looking in the mirror.
Providence watches over the bold.
About The Author
