Journalist Jim Acosta in Washington in April. (Stewart Cook/UTA/Getty Images)

By Drew Harwell

The independent journalist Jim Acosta sparked an intense backlash this week with what he called a “one of a kind interview”: A video of him talking with an AI-generated avatar modeled on Joaquin Oliver, a teenager killed in the Parkland high school shooting in 2018.

The video, which the former CNN White House correspondent posted Monday to his Substack newsletter, began with Acosta making small talk about LeBron James and “Star Wars” with the late teenager’s AI duplicate, which Oliver’s father created to bring attention to gun violence. PAID PROMOTED STORIES

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