Project Veritas has released a second in an explosive series of undercover videos that shows a CNN executive seemingly admitting the company exploits fear associated with the Covid pandemic simply to drive ratings up.
“Covid? Gangbusters with ratings, right? Which is why we [CNN] constantly have the [Covid] death toll on the side, which I have a major problem with – with how we’re tallying how many people die every day,” CNN Technical Director Charlie Chester can be heard saying.
“It’s fear. Fear really drives numbers [TV ratings] … Fear is the thing that keeps you tuned in.”
Chester reveals that whenever the graphic showing high death toll numbers associated with the pandemic gets taken down the head of CNN, Jeff Zucker, will call into control rooms – on a special phone – and order the graphic be put back up.
“I’ve been in the room many a times where my director tells me take it down and then we get a phone call, like the…batphone rings in the back,” Chester says.
“The special red phone rings and this producer picks it up. You hear [murmurs], and every so often they put it on speaker and it’s the head of the network being like, ‘There’s nothing that you’re doing right now that makes me want to stick. Put the [Covid death toll] numbers back up, because that’s the most enticing thing that we had. So, [we] put it back up.’”
Jeff Zucker pic.twitter.com/V6AyxwPi99
— danielb (@danielb35035706) April 14, 2021
Chester then goes to reveal that CNN hosts, as a matter of course, lead guests into talking about topics the way the network wants them to. They only book guests who routinely follow that lead he says.
“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. The only people that we [CNN] will let on the air, for the most part, are people that have a proven track record of taking the bait,” Chester explains.
“I mean there’s no such thing as unbiased news. It just doesn’t exist. There’s too many agendas…it’s impossible. The most unbiased news is grassroots, out of people’s basements with podcasts,” he adds.
ITN has made several requests for comment from CNN executives. They have so far gone unanswered.
In the first video released yesterday, Chester admitted CNN slanted news coverage on their network throughout President Trump’s first term in office in order to see him defeated in last year’s election.
“Look what we did, we [CNN] got Trump out. I am 100% going to say it, and I 100% believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out…I came to CNN because I wanted to be a part of that,” Chester says.