In a new undercover video, a CNN producer is caught on tape admitting that CNN’s obsessions with Donald Trump and Russia are due to chasing ratings from their liberal audience.
“Why is CNN constantly like ‘Russia this, Russia that?'” an unnamed Project Veritas reporter asks John Bonifield, CNN supervising producer, in a video that appears to have been filmed covertly.
“Because it’s ratings,” Bonifield said. “Our ratings are incredible right now.”
Bonifield said CNN CEO Jeff Zucker told his staff to get back to the Russia collusion story after they covered Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord for two days, and implied that this decision was driven by ratings.
“All the nice cutesey ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school, you’re like: ‘That’s adorable,'” he said. “This is a business.”
“Even if Russia was trying to swing an election, we try to swing their elections,” Bonifield said. “Our CIA is doing sh-t all the time, we’re out there trying to manipulate governments.”
When asked if he thought the Russia collusion story was legitimate or all hype, Bonifield said it’s “mostly bullsh-t right now.”
“Like we don’t have any big giant proof,” he said. “I think the president is probably right to say, like, ‘Look, you are witch-hunting me. You have no smoking gun. You have no real proof.'”
The undercover footage, which Project Veritas released late Monday night, isn’t the only problem CNN has to deal with right now.
On Tuesday morning, CNN announced that three of its reporters resigned after they published a story riddled with gross factual errors and sourced by a single, unnamed individual that claimed a Trump transition team member met with a Russian investment executive just days before the inauguration. Many of the details in CNN’s report were completely false, which prompted the network to issue a retraction and an apology to the Trump team member in question, and led to a company-wide investigation.
