With the third installment of James O'Keefe's latest Project Veritas exposé, a method emerges. This is to be death for CNN by a thousand cuts, and from the looks of it, deeper cuts with each successive chapter. For those who had anticipated an explosive first installment, let's be honest: it was a bit underwhelming. Perhaps if O'Keefe had set expectations upfront, it would have been less so.
That said, he had to build the foundation: we were introduced to Cary Poarch, the whistleblower and satellite uplink technician, a two-year CNN employee (and Bernie Sanders supporter). Further, O'Keefe needed to build out the history of the relationship between CEO Jeff Zucker and President Donald Trump, which began in earnest when Zucker backed "The Apprentice," the vehicle that delivered Trump to millions of homes on a weekly basis.
Part two of the series debuted Tuesday, the day of the fourth Democratic debate, and it was topical and revelatory, but still not quite bombshell material. CNN's bias for certain candidates was revealed, as were conscious decisions to ignore others. Embarrassing CNN staffer quotes concerning Biden ranged from funny, such as "A Biden rally is like, snoozeville!" to damning: "[Hunter Biden working in Ukraine] looks bad. It smells bad."
The third installment frames CNN as a bunch of frustrated journalists forced to do the bidding of a sleazy guy who cares about nothing but money and a personal vendetta. In Star Wars terms, Zucker is Jabba the Hutt. He's a bad boss who lords over an increasingly dejected newsroom, ignoring real stories in order to focus relentlessly on one man.
Father & son? Screenshots: YouTube
Every corner of the ugly picture is colored in by multiple staffers.
A few of their quotes:
"Because think about it...media, their purpose is to create this stuff...in the process sometimes they try to create news by either focusing on congressmen that have issues with the president and then trying to force the president to give a response...it's to provoke conflict. Because conflict drives clicks...conflict is what sells...create clicks, get more money."
--Christian Sierra, Media Coordinator
"When Zucker took over, it wasn't until Trump that we ended up being all Trump, all the time."
--Adia, staffer, "The Axe Files"
"It's the Trump network, dog...they sold themselves to the devil...all they do is because of sponsors and everything."
--Mike Brevna, Floor Manager
"We could be so much better than what we are...you learn about it in journalism school, we're supposed to be middle of the road, that's our job. Now it's just infotainment...I haven't listened to a 9am call [morning CEO-run conference call] in about 15 years...It's all bullshit. It's all just a bunch of bullshit. I wish it wasn't that way."
--Patrick Davis, Manager of Field Operations
"[Here's a] novel idea, we could let the news people decide the news and have the executives stay out of it!"
--Nick Neville, Media Coordinator
"We used to cover news. We used to go out and do stories. We used to cover shit, you know?"
--Scott Garber, Sr. Field Engineer
It turns out, the folks at CNN are not all bad. As I've often said, don't blame liberal voters, they're just brainwashed automatons, regurgitating what they're conditioned to believe. Blame the corporate politico-media overlords who decide the "programming," literally and figuratively. No sane person would accept ideas like late-term abortion, queer story hour, or "helping" kids find their trans identity. No sane American would accept, let alone demand, limitation of speech or other constitutional rights. These ideas are programmed by leftists, not arrived at through critical thought and honest debate. Blame the sinners, save the deceived.
These are journalists who wanted to do good in the world, and they have grown deeply cynical. For the purposes of our metaphor, they are Storm Troopers: they know deep down they're working for the bad guy, so their hearts aren't in it. Occasionally, someone betrays the Dark Side, so whistleblower Cary Poarch is analogous to Finn, the stormtrooper who defects and joins the rebels.
Of course, some CNN staff are not frustrated solely with Zucker. Some of them are more morbid, such as the gentleman referenced in the tweet below who wishes death to the president.
Watch the entirety of Part III for more detail, but you get the picture. CNN is a vast news apparatus, and many its employees wish to do what they trained for: investigate and report on the broad variety of newsworthy events taking place in the world.
The average citizen is chained to mainstream media, jerked around by the neck if they attempt to look elsewhere, so the media consumer at large is Leia. I never said the metaphor was perfect.
O'Keefe is being attacked, as one would expect. The media pundits' ammunition is pretty weak, perhaps because their hearts aren't in it any more than the ink-stained wretches at CNN. They know they're the bad guys. At any rate, O'Keefe is fighting back.
h/t to CD Media's Editor in Chief, L. Todd Wood, who recently pegged Trump as Obi-Wan, and by striking him down with impeachment, he would only become more powerful. I hope that's right. At least we know who Jabba is, thanks in part to O'Keefe.
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