Headline RoundupDecember 4th, 2020

Coverage Split After Project Veritas Infiltrates Private CNN Calls

Media Industry, Media Bias, Project Veritas, CNN Bias, 2020 Election

Summary from the AllSides News Team

Undercover journalism outlet Project Veritas published covert recordings of CNN staff calls this week. During the calls, CNN President Jeff Zucker and other employees discussed editorial decisions around President Donald Trump, Hunter Biden, and the 2020 presidential election. Veritas founder James O'Keefe dialed into one of the calls mid-meeting to confront Zucker about CNN's media bias. CNN then accused O'Keefe of breaking the law by recording the call without employees' consent. Right-rated outlets and voices paid the news more attention than the rest of the spectrum did. Coverage from the right generally framed the recordings as hard evidence of CNN's anti-Trump bias. The story received little to no coverage from center-rated outlets. The limited coverage from left-rated sources focused on CNN's claim that O'Keefe broke the law; others advanced the notion that the recordings backfired by purportedly confirming Fox News host Tucker Carlson to be racist.

Featured Coverage of this Story

From the Left

Project Veritas’s James O’Keefe crashed a private CNN teleconference. CNN says he may have broken the law.

Washington Post

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Washington Post

Analysis

Over the last few years, Project Veritas has gathered evidence in an effort to prove that CNN slants its coverage to hurt President Trump. In the past, that has meant surreptitiously recording and releasing videos of unsuspecting CNN employees talking about the network’s coverage, as well as releasing leaked tapes of comments made by network executives and staffers in editorial meetings. Last year, the conservative group revealed that a contractor hired by CNN as a satellite uplink technician had been a primary “whistleblower” on the effort.

But on Tuesday, Project...

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From the Right

Project Veritas recording reportedly shows CNN spiked coverage of Hunter Biden laptop controversy

Washington Examiner

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Washington Examiner

News

Project Veritas’s James O’Keefe released a recording of CNN’s top brass reportedly saying the outlet would not cover the Hunter Biden laptop controversy.

“I do think, on the Breitbart, New York Post, Fox News rabbit hole of Hunter Biden, which I don't think anybody outside of that world understood,” CNN President Jeff Zucker allegedly said in the recording.

Another CNN employee, reportedly Political Director David Chalian, said during the call: “Obviously, we're not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden, which seems to be giving...

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From the Right

Project Veritas Strips CNN Naked

Townhall

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Townhall

Opinion

Project Veritas' expose of CNN's behind-the-scenes conference calls shows that the network's slogan should be "We won't fully report so you can't knowledgeably decide."

James O'Keefe of Project Veritas, in the ultimate trolling coup of the year, monitored and recorded CNN's morning conference call with CNN President Jeff Zucker and other company executives and reporters for some two months. O'Keefe has released the first batch of audiotapes from those calls, which confirm the network's anti-Donald Trump, pro-Joe Biden bias.

Exposing CNN's liberal bias is no bombshell, as it is self-evident...

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