BUSTED: CBS News accused of staging a fake coronavirus event

A CBS News crew pulled medical professionals out of the hospitals at the Cherry Medical Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan in order to have them line up in their vehicles so the CBS camera crew would have a long line to film for their COVID-19 coverage.

This story is spearheaded by James O’Keefe’s non-profit journalism enterprise, Project Veritas, which “investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society.”

“Our insider witnessed the whole thing and came to Project Veritas, because he knew we would protect him,” said James O’Keefe.

“The insider told us that medical personnel were taken away from treating patients and making the line longer for actual patients to wait for the Covid-19 test,” he said.

O’Keefe asked the insider: “You’re telling me you’re a hundred percent certain that CBS News, CBS News Corporation—national, staged a fake event. They faked the news. They faked the reality and broadcasted that to all of their audience last Friday on ‘CBS This Morning.’”

“A hundred percent—absolutely,” the insider said.

Nick Ross, a corporate cleaning site supervisor at the Cherry Health facility, said he was present when the CBS News crew arrived and started setting up the video shoot at the Covid-19 testing site in the parking lot.

“Apparently the news crew wanted more people in the line because they knew it was scheduled,” he said.

Maria Hernandez-Vasquez, a professional registration specialist, shared with the insider that Cherry Health Director of Quality and Informatics Glenda Walker aided in organizing the facility’s workers into the Covid-19 testing line.

“It's just annoying cause we could have done other stuff,” said one registered nurse who was there recording with a hidden camera by a Project Veritas insider.

The nurse noted that personnel at the medical center were forewarned that the CBS News crew would be showing up. “We knew they were coming. We had no clue that we’re going to have to, like, do fake patients.”

Another registered nurse, Alison Mauro, who was recorded on a hidden camera, said she and other medical professionals working the drive-through testing site did not administer real swab swipes as CBS News was filming, but made the actual patients wait in a long, manufactured line for the sake of appearances.

“We pretended. There were a couple of real patients, which made it worse,” Mauro said.

The manufactured footage was used to accompany CBS News reporter Andriana Diaz’s narration and interview with Tasha Blackmon, the president and CEO of Cherry Health.

In the news report, Blackmon shared that her facility needed gowns and N95 masks, which are used to filter incoming breath to protect the medical professionals.

Blackmon told Project Veritas in a phone conversation, “We and CBS News had nothing to do with that line.”

Blackmon initially said she had not viewed the preview of the Project Veritas report that had been emailed to her, and assured Project Veritas that she would contact the team after she had time to review the matter with her team, but she never responded to any of Project Veritas’ follow up phone calls or emails.

Project Veritas also spoke to CBS News President Susan Zirinsky, who agreed to review a preview of the report.

The CBS news statement reads as follows:

CBS News did not stage anything at the Cherry Health facility. Any suggestion to the contrary is 100% false. These allegations are alarming. We reached out to Cherry Health to address them immediately. They informed us for the first time that one of their chief officers told at least one staffer to get in the testing line along with real patients. No one from CBS News had any knowledge of this before tonight. They also said that their actions did not prevent any actual patients from being tested. We take the accuracy of our reporting very seriously and we are removing the Cherry Health portion from the piece.

CBS This Morning Executive Producer Diana Miller gave an interview to her parent company’s website Viacom.com, where she said her morning show was making the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic a priority.

“Whenever you’re chasing a story that’s developing, there are threads that emerge. Focusing on first responders has been important for us because they are on the frontlines, and it’s important we’re showing the reality of the situations they are in every day,” she said.

“We’ve always been driven by the news and want to provide context and clarity on the important stories of the day,” Miller said.

Michigan’s Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who has prevented Michiganders from returning to work without a means of providing for their families, has not denounced the fake news that took place in her own state.