Tipsheet

Project Veritas Video Shows CNN Staffer Revealing How Network Manipulates Guests

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  April 15, 2021 7:30 AM

Project Veritas is out with another video of the CNN staffer who admitted to an undercover PV journalist that the network engaged in “propaganda” to help Joe Biden get elected and is focusing on allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz to get him out of office because “he’s a problem for the Democratic Party.” The latest clips show technical director Charlie Chester explaining the network’s obsession with COVID-19 was because “fear really drives numbers." He also details how CNN "manipulates" guests. 

“COVID? Gangbusters with ratings,” he told the journalist in a secretly recorded video. 

“Which is why we constantly have the death toll on the side,” he continued. “It would make our point better if [the COVID death toll] was higher.”

“And I’m like, what am I f–king rallying for?” he continued. “That’s a problem that we’re doing that.”

He also claimed network president Jeff Zucker would use a special phone to call the control room, requesting the tracker get put back on screen.

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“Like, this special red phone rings and they pick it up and it’s, like, the head of the network being like, ‘There’s nothing that you’re doing right now that makes me want to stick. Put the numbers back up. Because that’s the most enticing thing that we have.’ So things like that are constantly talked about," he said.

Chester also explained the only way—"for the most part”—guests are invited on the network is if they can be baited into making certain statements.

“Any reporter on CNN, what they’re actually doing is they’re telling the person what to say. It’s always, like, leading them in a direction before they even open their mouths,” he said. “And the only people we let on air, for the most part, are people that have a proven track record of taking the bait.”

He then detailed how people are manipulated: “I think there’s an art to manipulation…Inflection, saying things twice — there’s little subtleties to how to manipulate people…I mean, it’s enough to change the world, you know?”