Conservative Journalist Crashes CNN Meeting To Deliver Some Tough News
Conservative investigative journalist James O’Keefe confronted CNN president Jeff Zucker on a network editorial meeting conference call which he livstreamed on social media.
According to O’Keefe, he and Project Veritas have been listening in to such meetings for two months, and those meetings will say a lot about the inner workings of the far-left network.
In a video that was originally broadcast live Tuesday morning, O’Keefe, who had apparently been hiding on the CNN call, cut in and asked for Zucker to identify himself.
Hey, Jeff Zucker, you there?” O’Keefe said.
“Yes,” replied the CNN head.
“This is James O’Keefe, we’ve been listening to your CNN calls for basically two months, recording everything,” O’Keefe said.
“Just wanted to ask you some questions if you have a minute,” he added.
“Do you still feel you’re the most trusted name in news, because I have to say from what I’ve been hearing on these phone calls, I don’t know about that,” he said.
O’Keefe added he didn’t feel CNN is very “independent” as a news source, which led to a few moments of silence from Zucker and others on the call.
Zucker finally broke the awkward silence.
“OK, thank you for your comments,” he said, before addressing his staff.
“So everybody, in light of that, I think what we’ll do is … we’ll set up a new system and we’ll be back with you, and we’ll do the rest of the call a little bit later.”
O’Keefe, told his audience online, and the CNN executives, that he’d be releasing some interesting recordings from his time secretly listening in on CNN’s editorial meetings.
“We recorded for a while and we have clips of various producers talking, the president [of CNN] talking, describing their motives, describing their political philosophy, describing how they don’t cover certain things, certain political parties tell them to cover things a certain way,” O’Keefe said.
While O’Keefe was addressing his online audience, Zucker could be heard still attempting to end the call.
The call ended moments later after O’Keefe told Zucker that he’d begin releasing CNN’s conference call recordings at 7 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
We’ve been recording @CNN 9AM call for MONTHS and we are going to start releasing the tapes TONIGHT at 7pm Eastern
See them first https://t.co/kDe3HDvxTZ
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 1, 2020
O’Keefe thanked a “brave” insider for giving him access to CNN’s back-channel communications.
UPDATE, Dec. 3, 2020: Following publication of this article, CNN’s communications department tweeted in response to O’Keefe’s video: “Legal experts say this may be a felony. We‘ve referred it to law enforcement.”
BREAKING: @Project_Veritas LIVE STREAMS President Jeff Zucker’s 9am Editorial Phone Call With @CNN Senior Leadership #ExposeCNN https://t.co/b0xQvRtADv
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 1, 2020
However, O’Keefe told The Washington Post in an interview Wednesday that he has yet to hear from law enforcement. “Project Veritas has legal experts, too, and we believe Jeff Zucker is just mad and embarrassed,” he said. “Project Veritas follows the law.”
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