The executive editor of the New York Times is hurling insults at the organizer of an undercover video investigation that caught a Times employee boasting about slanting the news against President Trump and explaining that's his job.
Dean Baquet said in a video about James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas: "It was an undercover operation in which James O'Keefe, who I think is a despicable person who runs a despicable operation. He essentially tries to catch people from what he sees as the left-wing media saying inappropriate things."
The investigation was part of the American Pravda undercover video series by O'Keefe's Project Veritas.
O'Keefe has released two videos about the Times already, following three about CNN released last summer.
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The most recent revealed that the placement of videos on the front pages of YouTube often are rigged by YouTube staffers rather than determined by algorithms. A YouTube insider made the revelation after the Times' Nick Dudich bragged about having influence on YouTube staffers.
Baquet's harsh comments are on video, as are O'Keefe's response to them.
Baquet said: "Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts about this. For those of you who saw it, it was an undercover operation in which James O'Keefe, who I think is a despicable person who runs a despicable operation. He essentially tries to catch people from what he sees as the left-wing media saying inappropriate things. He caught a kid, a guy in his 20s, who I, to give you an idea, they portray him as a very powerful figure in the New York Times… I never met him."
He argued Dudick as in an entry-level job but acknowledged: "He said things he shouldn't have said. Um, and he said things that you know, were damaging. And I'll deal with that. But the greater sin wasn't his, it was theirs. They sent a young woman in, as part of their undercover operation, who essentially made him think he was developing a friendship. He said really stupid stuff, he said he was Jim Comey's godson, he said he had once worked undercover, essentially… he said stuff he shouldn't have said. But his sin was a sin of foolishness and it violated our policies. Their sin was greater. Their sin was a sin of lying and subterfuge. They're, they're just awful."
O'Keefe said the Times should have been thanking Project Veritas for uncovering a weakness in their system. And he said that while Project Veritas may have lied to the Times, the Times lied to its readers.
And he noted the Times updated its social media policy on Oct. 13, just days after Project Veritas released two videos about the Times.
The new policy warns Times journalists not to express partisan opinions or promote political views in social media posts.
"Our investigation is ongoing. We still have people inside their newsroom," O'Keefe noted.
The American Pravda series began with several reports about CNN, including one in which Jimmy Carr, an associate producer for the "New Day" morning program, lambasted the president.
Carr said: "We all recognize he is a clown, that he is hilariously unqualified for this, he's really bad at this and that he does not have America's best interests. We recognized he's just f------ crazy."
The first video about the New York Times, earlier this week, revealed Dudich, the audience strategy editor for NYT Video, explaining how the Times slants Trump news on the front page.
"Oh, we always do," he said.
Thursday, Project Veritas released its second video about the Times.
It again featured Dudich, this time describing "how he can influence the news by manipulating social media and employing the help of his friends in Silicon Valley," Project Veritas said.
"As an editor, I'm a gatekeeper so I can choose what goes out and what doesn't go out. And let's say we wrote something about Facebook negatively… We actually just did a video about Facebook negatively, and I chose to put it in a spot that I knew wouldn't do well," he said.
Project Veritas said Dudich admitted he has friends in Silicon Valley who help his videos move to YouTube's front page.
"He buried the Facebook story because of his personal biases, and to protect his friends in Silicon Valley, which is in conflict with the New York Times mission," the report said.
Dudich explained why he keeps such connections quiet.
"Let's say something ends up on the YouTube front page, New York Times freaks out about it, but they don't know it’s just because my friends curate the front page. So, it's like, a little bit of mystery you need in any type of job to make it look like what you do is harder than what it is."
The report noted Earnest Pettie, the brand and diversity curation lead at YouTube, helped "push Dudich's videos to the top."
In the video, he described Dudich as "one of the people I think who has more knowledge about YouTube as a platform than probably anyone else that I know."
He said the New York Times benefits from the relationship.
"There are things that exist in the product that, like, are definitely optimized for news. Now, like last night if you searched for Hugh Hefner, there's the search results but then there's also. … A carousel comes up with a page that’s just news videos. There's this need, people are searching for a topic that is, that our systems know is a 'newsy' topic, so let’s give them videos that we know to be newsy because we know we have these news partnerships."
He added, "In very rare cases, we will try to make up for the fact that something isn't in the trending tab. We will, like, use some type of intervention … to encourage the thing to be there."
He explained "algorithms do control everything but sometimes you need humans to provide a check."
The first New York Times video showed Dudich explaining his job is to slant the news.
"That's why I'm here," he said on the video.
Hear his comments (Editor's Note: Be forewarned of highly offensive language in the video):
In an earlier segment of the American Pravda series, Carr said American voters are "stupid as s---."
The video: (Be warned of offensive language):
Carr continued, regarding Trump: "This is a man who's not actually a Republican. He's not actually a Republican. He just adopted that because that was the party he thought he could win in. He doesn't believe anything that these people believe. The man's on this third wife. I guarantee you he's paid for abortions. He doesn't give a s--- about abortion. He doesn't care about gay marriage. He doesn't even really care about the budget."
And he claimed he's not alone in his opinions: "Ninety percent of us are on board with just the fact that he's crazy."
The Carr video was the third in the Project Veritas series.
In No. 2, Van Jones, former President Obama's onetime "czar" on green jobs and a longtime left-wing commentator, activist and organizer, agreed with President Trump that the Russia scandal is "a big nothing burger."
The video clip shows Jones being approached on a street and stating in response to a question, "The Russian thing is just a big nothing burger."
He adds, "There's nothing there you can do."
The video (Be warned of offensive language):
In the video that opened the series, another CNN producer admitted the network's focus on allegations that Trump's election campaign colluded with Russia is mostly for ratings. The producer said the network's mostly liberal audience would not have put up with that kind of treatment of Obama.
The first video was of CNN producer John Bonifield, and his comments drew the attention of the White House. O'Keefe's video of Bonifield shows him saying, "I think there are a lot of liberal CNN viewers who want to see Trump really get scrutinized."
See the video (beware off offensive language in the video):
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