Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center writer Curtis Houck -- who's also the managing editor of NewsBusters, the MRC's main vehicle for disseminating the "sober, substantial" media criticism he claims the MRC issues -- has a weird obsession with CNN correspondent Jim Acosta. Houck is the leader of the MRC's war on Acosta, attacking pretty much every public utterance Acosta makes, hurling insults, cheering every time he's heckled by rabid Trump supporters and portraying him as a mentally deranged partisan. Houck's obsession with Acosta has only gotten worse, to the point that we can declare him a victim of Acosta Derangement Syndrome.
Under the headline "Jim Acosta Loses His Mind, Throws Fit in New Tussle with WH’s Huckabee Sanders," Houck ranted in an Aug. 2 post: "Just a reminder: CNN is straight up lying to you if any of their more prominent figures ever say they don't want to be the story because everything is about them. And Thursday’s White House Press Briefing perfectly illustrated that as chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta lost his mind when Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wouldn’t fall into a trap he had laid for her." Houck claimed Acosta "angrily responded" as Sanders "took him to the cleaners," while "Acosta’s colleagues soldiered on with more professionalism than Acosta could ever show." Houck also touted how Sanders referenced the MRC's utterly fraudulent assertion that "90 percent of the coverage on [Trump] is negative."
On Aug. 8, Houck promoted a piece in the Atlantic critical of Acosta "for living up to the verb closely associated to his name (accost) and making himself the story when it should be reporting the news" and claimed that the writer offered "advice that Acosta undoubtedly will ignore."
When Acosta appeared on Steven Colbert's late-night show, Houck was ready with more venom (excessive bolding in original):
Receiving a raucous hero’s welcome reserved for far-left politicians, CNN’s Jim Acosta flaunted Jim Acosta on the Wednesday edition of CBS’s The Late Show by reliving his August 2 duel with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, claiming he’s a fact-checker, blaming “conservative outlets” and “websites” for “twist[ing] and warp[ing]” their views of him, and using an either or fallacy to justify his chicanery.
[...]
Acting as though we’re living through the end times, Acosta fretted that “these are tough times” so “tough questions” must “be asked” and “I don't think we do ourselves any good, Stephen, if we shy away from these hard questions and, you know, my goodness, the way I look at it is — and this is the debate I have with my fellow journalists when we talk about this — what if we just did nothing?”
Jeez. This guy really does think he’s Captain America squaring off against Thanos< in Infinity War.
Houck also wrote -- in addition to complaining that Acosta spoke "smugly" and exhibited "utter stupidity" -- that Acosta "also sought to blame conservative media and websites (which, one could assume included NewsBusters) for giving people a false understanding of Acosta and his colleagues." Interestingly, Houck doesn't dispute that claim -- which tells us he knows Acosta is right.
Houck also claims Acosta exhibits "narcissism," which is "clear to the naked eye." As is Houck's worsening case of Acosta derangement.
