O’Keefe to Release Audio Exposing Media Bias; CNN Goes on Defense

On yesterday’s Sean Hannity radio show, Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe told Sean that he would be releasing “hundreds of hours of tape” on Thursday that came from a mainstream media outlet’s newsroom and CNN isn’t taking it lying down.

“Usually I don’t announce my next target but in the next 48 hours, Project Veritas, like WikiLeaks, will be releasing hundreds of hours of tape from within the establishment media,” O’Keefe said to Hannity. “Our next target is, in fact, the media. We are releasing tape from within their newsroom.”

O’Keefe said that the audio was gained from insiders at the media company that went to Veritas presumedly to blow the whistle on a culture of bias.

In a telephone interview with CNN on Wednesday, O’Keefe specifically named CNN as the target.

“We’re calling it CNN Leaks,” he said. Then O’Keefe said that he had a few hundred hours of secretly, but legally, recorded material and would be releasing part one Thursday morning at 10 AM ET.

CNN has now launched a pre-emptive strike seeking to delegitimize the self-labelled guerilla journalist.

CNN’s Brian Stelter, the network’s media analyst, penned an article today referring to O’Keefe’s work as “so-called exposes” and said that the Project Veritas founder is “discredited” and “not a serious journalist.”

Some of his so-called exposés have relied on misleading editing techniques. And an incident in 2010 landed him in legal trouble. After he was arrested at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office, O’Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for entering federal property under false pretenses. He was sentenced to three years of probation, plus community service and a fine.

Given his track record, many consider O’Keefe discredited, and not a serious journalist.

If O’Keefe truly releases raw, unedited audio tomorrow morning, Mr. Stelter’s effort to get out in front of the story will play directly into O’Keefe’s narrative of a broken mainstream media.