The technical director who confessed that CNN is a leftist propaganda machine also says the network purposely pushes bad news to keep viewers, and that reporters manipulate viewers and interview subjects in a manner akin to gaslighting.
The latest confession from CNN’s Charlie Chester is in Part 2 of a three-part exposé from Project Veritas.
In Part 1, Chester revealed the network’s nefarious lies about Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden and President Trump during last year’s election, and admitted that the network’s mission last year was removing Trump from office.
In Part 2, he explains how the network keeps viewers tuned in with bad news, and that top brass personally control graphics and chryons to stoke fear as the network’s leftist anchors are spinning the news.
And reporters have turned manipulating interview subjects into an “art from,” he said.
Emphasize Bad News
Speaking to an undercover reporter for PV, Chester disclosed why CNN focuses on the China Virus death toll, instead of recovery rates.
“Because that’s not scary,” he said. “If it bleeds it leads. No one ever says those things out loud but it’s obvious based on, like, the amount of stories that we do.”
In fact, such is the network’s obsession with keeping viewers in a constant state of fear and anxiety that CNN chieftain Jeff Zucker personally controls what appears on screen, and calls producers to keep the bad news front and center.
Chester said Zucker has a “batphone” to pass down orders.
The special red phone rings and this producer picks it up.… 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, put it back up because that’s the most enticing thing we have.”
“Fear really drives numbers,” Chester said. “Fear is the thing that keeps you tuned in.”
The China Virus is “gangbusters with ratings,” Chester said, “which is why we constantly have the death toll on the side.”
No Unbiased News
Chester also confessed that CNN is the flip side of rival Fox News, perceived by some to be its “conservative” alternative.
“I don’t think CNN is any different than Fox,” he said. “I think it’s on a different side of it.”
As well, Chester confessed that CNN is, again, a hard-left propaganda machine whose reporters work extra hard to get interview subjects to say what the reporter wants:
There’s no such thing as unbiased news. It just doesn’t exist. There’s too many agendas. There’s too many people that have jobs that need to feed their families for it to be unbiased.
It’s impossible. The most unbiased news is grassroots, out of people’s basements with podcasts.
That’s the most unbiased you could probably get.
Thus do CNN’s reporters ask leading questions designed to elicit the “right” answer — i.e., the answer the leftist network needs to push its agenda.
“Listen to the way they ask questions,” Chester said. “Because they’re not actually asking questions. Any reporter on CNN. What they’re actually doing is they’re telling the person what to say. It’s an art form.… There’s an art form to it.”
Chester offered the hypothetical example of an automobile wreck at an intersection. The reporter will “ask” not just about the crash, but observe that traffic lights are “falling apart,” and poor “infrastructure” is the problem. “Infrastructure,” of course, is the latest hobbyhorse to justify massive federal spending on pet leftist projects.
We’ve led them to talk about how we want them to talk about it. It’s always like leading them in a direction before they even open their mouths.
And the only people that we will even let on the air, for the most part, are people that have a proven track record of taking the bait.
“I think there’s like an art to manipulation,” Chester continued. He called that a form of gaslighting, a means by which one person tricks another into questioning his judgement or even reality itself:
You ever meet somebody that you feel like you’re being gaslit by? Start to listen to how they word things. Inflection, saying things like twice — like there’s little subtleties to how to manipulate people.
I mean, it’s enough to change the world, you know?… It was a plan, and I think this time, it worked with, like, the Trump thing.
In Part 1 of the exposé, Chester admitted that CNN targets Republicans with “propaganda,” and is now trying to destroy Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.
