The expression O’Keefe shared is a reference to what bomber pilots use to express the point that when they are “catching flak,” or anti-aircraft fire, they are over the target area.
For those who don’t know Project Veritas’ work – or its potential lessons for manufactured housing industry professionals – those connections will be made later below. Their methods can be summarized as follows.
First, one or more of O’Keefe’s colleagues go under cover.
Then, they gain the confidence of one or multiple people in an organization such as CNN.
Finally, they produce videos that reflect what is going on behind the scenes. Those under cover videos can then spotlight issues that the public may not be fully aware is taking place.
O’Keefe’s organization calls that “The American Pravda” series. Their title is a play on words.
For those too young to recall the Cold War, or who’ve not studied Soviet history, Pravda and Isvestia were the two primary state-run newspapers in Russia’s Communist era. Pravda means “truth,” which the publication was a propaganda tool for their government.
That state media propaganda method was widely known, so a saying arose among millions of the Soviet Union’s people: “There’s no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia.”
A recent example of Project Veritas’ American Pravda series was a report about CNN, where they have a producer on camera who said that the Russia collusion reports with the Trump campaign were “bullsh-t.”
Per Project Veritas, “John Bonifield a Sr. Producer at CNN, admits to several beliefs that are in direct conflict with the official CNN narrative that Trump has colluded with Russia, and that Russia has interfered with the 2016 election.”
Bonifield expressed on this video “clear doubts that there is a fire behind the Russia smoke,” as the producer stated, “I haven’t seen any good enough evidence to show that the President [Trump] committed a crime.”
Bonifield also confirmed that CNN staff is ideologically biased against Trump, stating, “I know a lot of people don’t like him and they’d like to see him get kicked out of office…”
That contention has been indirectly confirmed by a number of post-election studies of bias in the mainstream media. A recent one stated the some 91% of the news about the president is negative.
Bonifield further confirmed CNN’s bias against the president, stating, “I think the President is probably right to say, like, look you are witch hunting me…you have no real proof.”
Bonifield expressed the view that the Russia story was great for CNN’s ratings, “and that orders from CEO Jeff Zucker himself have directed CNN to pursue Russia leads at the expense of other stories.”
Bonifield also stated on video, “And the CEO of CNN said in our internal meeting, he said ‘good job everybody covering the Climate Accords, but we’re done with it let’s get back to Russia.’”
The senior CNN producer further comments on Russia, “it’s mostly bullsh-t right now. Like, we don’t have any giant proof…if it was something really good, it’d leak.”
The Methods of Propaganda
When there is little or no push back against what a source states, that source’s narrative will over time tend to be believed.
This is an important reality for the manufactured housing industry in several ways.
One is the direct connection of political and regulatory events impacting the factory built home industry. The regulatory regime manufactured housing encounters has led thousands of industry professionals to believe the industry has been constrained from achieving its true potential. Some examples include:
- Pam Danner’s office at HUD, or
- from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB),
- FHFA or others.
The other is that much of the media, intentionally or not, routinely uses terminology and a narrative that are not always accurate and widely reflect bias perceived by industry professionals as harmful to the interests of manufactured housing industry and its home owners.
Whether or not someone is a fan of O’Keefe, Julian Assange, or their methods, each in their own way are raising important issues about the power and influence of media in America.
Those sources are also raising questions about how the political system actually works, as opposed to how one may wish them to be. ##
Editorial Footnote
As a footnote, the manufactured housing industry routinely needs a similar effort that exposes the questions, problems and issues that “official” sources may be spinning or permitting to flow to the industry and/or to the public.
That’s the pro-industry role that MHProNews and MHLivingNews has pursued for years. With the support of others, these twin platforms have done more exposes and fisking than anyone else in the industry’s history, which we then provide to readers with the motto, “We Provide, You Decide.” © It should be noted that sponsors may or may not agree with coverage, commentary or report topics. ## # (News, analysis, and commentary.)
(Image credits are as shown above, and when provided by third parties, are shared under fair use guidelines.)
