Trump-critic Jim Acosta parts ways with CNN

Jim Acosta will leave CNN rather than take a graveyard shift at the cable news network. Acosta also announced the news during his show on Tuesday (via The Hollywood Reporter), saying, “I just wanted to end today’s show by thanking all of the wonderful people who work behind the scenes at this network. You may have seen some reports about me and this show. And after giving all of this some careful consideration and weighing an alternative time-slot CNN offered me, I have decided to move on. I am grateful to CNN for the nearly 18 years I have spent here, doing the news. I consider it a public service.”

The anchor went on, “People often ask me if the highlight of my career at CNN was at the White House covering Donald Trump. Actually, no. That moment came when I covered President Obama’s trip to Cuba in 2016 and had the chance to question the dictator there, Raul Castro, about the island’s political prisoners. As the son of a Cuban refugee, I took home the lesson … it is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant. I have always believed it’s the job of the press to hold power to account. I’ve always tried to do that at CNN and plan to go on doing it in the future.”

According to Variety, Acosta “is expected to seek out new ventures that he might build himself,” potentially pursuing independent journalism under a digital subscription model. CNN had reportedly offered Acosta a new time slot between midnight and 2 AM. This was apparently billed as “an opportunity to open a new front that would deliver breaking news to viewers in California and overseas” (per Variety). But it has been interpreted by some as a way for the network to shuffle one of Trump’s least favorite journalists out of sight amid the President’s ongoing threats to media corporations over news coverage. Accordingly, Trump celebrated reports about the time slot change as “really good news,” calling Acosta “one of the worst and most dishonest reporters in journalistic history” and “a major sleazebag,” per The Hill.

The announcement of Acosta’s departure comes amid major strategy shifts at CNN; CEO Mark Thompson recently told employees the company would be taking another crack at a dedicated streaming service (in addition to laying off 6 percent of the workforce). In regards to Acosta, the network said in a statement, “Jim has had a long, distinguished nearly 20-year career at CNN, with a track record of standing up to authority, for the first amendment and for our journalistic freedoms. We want to thank him for the dedication and commitment he’s brought to his reporting and wish him the very best in the future.”