Марк Дайс - The True Story of Fake News - How Mainstream Media Manipulates Millions

An executive editor then sent an internal memo to staff at CNN, which someone leaked, reading in part, “No one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and Jason first. This applies to social, video, editorial, and MoneyStream. No exceptions.” 789Their reckless editorial policy was coming back to bite them.

CNN’s ‘sources’ became so bad that they reported former FBI Director James Comey would testify that he did not tell President Trump that he wasn’t under a criminal investigation regarding the allegations of Russian interference in the election, but just a few hours later Comey’s testimony proved CNN laughably wrong again. 790Wolf Blitzer would later reprimand reporter Gloria Borger on air her for bad sources, saying that, “either they don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re lying.” 791

The very next day after the group of staffers resigned when another conspiracy theory was debunked, CNN was hit by another devastating blow to their credibility when hidden camera footage was released showing a long-time producer making some stunning revelations that further called into question the network’s integrity.

An undercover video of a CNN producer who worked at the network for almost fifteen years was published by the political activist organization Project Veritas showing him admitting that CNN’s constant coverage of the Trump/Russia conspiracy theories was “mostly bullshit,” just “for the ratings,” and that he thought President Trump was right to call it a “witch hunt.” 792The producer also laughed about the ‘ethics’ of the news business today.

Another video was released by Project Veritas the following day showing CNN host Van Jones calling the Trump/Russia ‘investigation’ a “big nothing burger.” 793A second producer was also caught on tape saying that 90% of the staff at CNN were anti-Trump, and that he thought the American people are “stupid as shit” for voting for him. 794

The Washington Post published a story downplaying the significance of the footage and made an obviously false statement about it, which then led to the Post issuing a retraction about their own story trying to call into question the validity of the Project Veritas videos, making the whole thing look even worse for CNN. 795

It’s unclear if CNN can ever repair the damage to their brand, and based off their editorial polices in recent years they appear to have completely abandoned any desire to be an actual news network. While many wonder if CNN will eventually go bankrupt due to destroying their once great reputation, they will likely stay in business and continue to function as a Leftist propaganda channel, although with a much smaller audience than they once enjoyed during their prime.

One of the most shocking examples of fake news was when NBC aired a story about General Motors’ trucks having faulty gas tanks that could rupture if they got into an accident and possibly explode. While this was a real concern, NBC actually staged a scene where they crashed a car into the side of a GM truck and blew it up. It turns out that NBC producers not only put the wrong gas cap on the truck so it would pop off causing fuel to squirt out, but they also attached lit flares underneath the car that crashed into the truck so when the fuel spilled out of the tank, it caught on fire and blew up. 796

The scene was dramatic, with a huge fireball engulfing the two vehicles, and news of the exploding gas tanks was now everywhere. But General Motors was suspicious and obtained the vehicles from the junkyard and had them forensically analyzed.

GM sued NBC after the analysis revealed what actually happened and NBC later admitted they staged the whole thing. “We apologize to our viewers and to General Motors. We have also concluded that unscientific demonstrations should have no place in hard news stories at NBC. That’s our new policy,” they said in a statement. 797

Another embarrassing and unethical blunder was accidentally exposed live on air when a reporter was shown in a canoe rowing down the middle of flooded streets in New Jersey after heavy rain. As soon as she began her segment the live shot looked like she was in six feet of water in the middle of a suburb, but then two men came walking by directly in front of her, showing the water was only ankle deep. 798

Looking bewildered, anchor Matt Lauer asked what just happened, and the staff in the New York studio could be heard laughing off camera. “Are these holy men, perhaps walking on top of the water?” he joked, not sure what else to say. Years later Jimmy Fallon asked Matt Lauer about the incident when he was a guest on The Tonight Show, but he didn’t want to talk about it and sarcastically said, “Thank you for bringing that up, James. I can’t wait to check my email when I get done with this show.” 799

NBC has a history of deceptively editing people’s comments which causes them to be misrepresented to the audience. One of the most well-known examples of this is when they edited George Zimmerman’s call to 911 just before he got into an altercation with Trayvon Martin and ended up fatally shooting him. NBC’s version of the call had Zimmerman on the phone with the operator saying, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black,” but the actual conversation was Zimmerman saying, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.” 800

The dispatcher then replies: “OK, and this guy◦— is he black, white or Hispanic?”

Zimmerman then responds, “He looks black.”

Even The Washington Post , a far left newspaper, admitted, “No matter how you feel about Zimmerman, that bit of tape editing was unfair to the truth and to Zimmerman’s reputation.” 801Zimmerman sued the network for defamation with the lawsuit saying, “NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain.” 802

After Rudolf Guiliani gave an interview on Fox News about President Trump’s proposed travel restriction which would temporarily prevent immigrants from several countries plagued by terrorism from coming to the U.S., NBC aired a segment using an edited sound bite taken out of context in attempts to frame Guiliani’s statements as if this was a ‘Muslim ban’ when he specifically said it was not. 803

NBC also deceptively edited comments by Reince Priebus on the same issue, again giving the false impression that Trump was proposing to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. when Priebus too said exactly the opposite. NBC’s story was titled “Reince Priebus on Muslim Registry: ‘Not Going to Rule Out Anything,’” 804based on an interview he had with Meet The Press host Chuck Todd. NBC also tweeted that when Reince was asked by Todd, “Can you rule out a registry for Muslims?” he answered, “I’m not going to rule out anything.” They actually cut his statement short to give readers the wrong impression, because he actually said, “I’m not gonna rule out anything, but we’re not going to have a registry based on a religion.” 805

Surprisingly New York Times political correspondent Maggie Habernman called out NBC for the deceptive edit, saying that Reince’s actual quote indicates the opposite of what NBC framed it. 806Even BuzzFeed’s senior technology writer Charlie Warzel said it was an “irresponsible half-quote [without] even a link for context.” 807

Perhaps Katie Couric, who worked as an anchor for NBC, learned the art of deceptively editing video clips in order to cast people in a false light there, because she was sued for twelve million dollars in 2016 by several people who claimed just that after they appeared in her anti-gun documentary Under the Gun . 808