This will be the year when "fake news" will be beaten, investigative journalist James O'Keefe told Radio Sputnik's Lee Stranahan and Garland Nixon, the hosts of the show Fault Lines.
CNN and its controversial Russia narrative were the first to find themselves in the crosshairs of PV’s undercover journalists.
As it turned out, the US mainstream media story about President Donald Trump and his alleged ties to Russia bore virtually no relation to reality and was described by CNN employees in such terms as "bullsh*t" and a "big nothing burger."
When PV investigative journalists asked why CNN continued to circulate the story, the answer was laconic: "Because it's ratings."
Radio Sputnik got in touch with Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe asking him to comment on PV's struggle against "fake news" and their future plans.
"The role of a journalist is to patrol the boundaries of the moral order, to test and reaffirm what is outrageous to most people," O'Keefe pointed out.
He refuted the claims of those who went so far as to brand the "American Pravda" videos as "propaganda."
"To call what we do propaganda — we shown people in their own words, it's the opposite of propaganda. It's a perversion, it's a disgrace to call me a propagandist. I don't characterize, I don't even editorialize, I say check out the video tapes," the journalist noted, calling attention to the fact that CNN itself had admitted that the tapes are authentic.
The PV founder underscored that the project is by no means focused on a right-left divide.
"I don't criticize left-wing journalism; I don't criticize right-wing journalism. We should all support facts-finding in this country. If you don't like the conclusions of the facts lead you then go to the Soviet Russia or something, this is the United States of America, we support information, we want people to be informed… If the American people are informed they will make the right decisions," O'Keefe stressed.
However, it's not just about CNN, O'Keefe remarked, referring to his exposure of The Washington Post's inaccurate coverage of PV's first CNN episode.
The media outlet released an article with the eloquent title "What the latest James O’Keefe video leaves out." However, the claim proved wrong and was promptly exposed by O'Keefe.
Now the editor's note to the article in question says: "This story has been updated to remove the assertion that the video in question did not say that supervising producer John Bonifield is based in Atlanta. In fact, the video says: 'I’d like to introduce you to CNN supervising producer John Bonifield in Atlanta,' which is CNN’s headquarters and is where many of its journalists are based."
It showed once again that the media doesn't bother to look into facts first, the activist underscored.
"It was the pride, and the arrogance, and the hubris, this is what they are talking about, it's the reaction of these media who are so, as you say, 'the banana is purple'. They are not grounded in reality, they are grounded in a religious devotion to this narrative that is not grounded in reality. So, what we are doing is exposing the matrix, not just CNN, we are exposing everything," O'Keefe emphasized.
The American people have started to wake up, the PV founder noted.
O'Keefe highlighted that people came to him and through these sources he was led to CNN Senior Producer John Bonifield who was caught on a hidden camera saying that the news channels "Russia narrative" is nothing but "bullsh*t."
"We have some bombshells coming," O'Keefe told Radio Sputnik, revealing that beyond CNN they have many stories about other US media companies.
"I think this will be the year we end fake news," O'Keefe said.
