November 08, 2018 11:38 AM UTC

The White House is Now Pushing Doctored Videos

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• by: Colorado Pols

Absolutely shameful, @PressSec. You released a doctored video – actual fake news. History will not be kind to you. https://t.co/v1w9Lj9TlK

— Matt Dornic (@mdornic) November 8, 2018

This is scary stuff, as the Washington Post reports:

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Wednesday night shared a video of CNN reporter Jim Acosta that appeared to have been altered to make his actions at a news conference look more aggressive toward a White House intern.

The edited video looks authentic: Acosta appeared to swiftly chop down on the arm of an aide as he held onto a microphone while questioning President Trump. But in the original video, Acosta’s arm appears to move only as a response to a tussle for the microphone. His statement, “Pardon me, ma’am,” is not included in the video Sanders shared.

Critics said that video — which sped up the movement of Acosta’s arms in a way that dramatically changed the journalist’s response — was deceptively edited to score political points. That edited video was first shared by Paul Joseph Watson, known for his conspiracy-theory videos on the far-right website Infowars…

…Side-by-side comparisons support claims from fact-checkers and experts such as Jonathan Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, who argued that crucial parts of the video appear to have been altered so as to distort the action.

On Wednesday the White House “suspended” the press credentials of CNN reporter Jim Acosta, citing his actions at the aforementioned news conference (but really because President Trump doesn’t like him and he wasn’t being enough like Sean Hannity).