The Smear: Sharyl Attkisson Talks Fake News, Hidden Political Agendas in New Book — Transcript

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1. 0:00Behind many political stories lurks a
2. 0:03hidden agenda. This disturbing movement
3. 0:06is exposed by Sharyl Attkisson in her
4. 0:08latest book. And as a journalist with
5. 0:10more than 30 years experience, she has
6. 0:13the stories to back it up. The smear,
7. 0:16why the title?
8. 0:18I think it encapsulates this trend that
9. 0:21I talk about that's happening in
10. 0:22Washington D.C. but has an impact really
11. 0:24all over the world. In our one-on-one,
12. 0:27the hard-hitting investigative
13. 0:28journalist told me the ultimate goal is
14. 0:31control. There's an industry that is
15. 0:34paid to go after and target journalists,
16. 0:37whistleblowers, political figures,
17. 0:39whatever it may be, and inundate our
18. 0:41consciousness and the images we see to
19. 0:44try to ruin, destroy, or smear the idea
20. 0:47that they don't like or the person who's
21. 0:49delivering it on behalf of paid
22. 0:51corporate or political interests. In her
23. 0:52latest book, she pulls back the curtain
24. 0:55on how sophisticated operatives work to
25. 0:57establish storylines, manipulate
26. 1:00journalists, and ultimately shape what
27. 1:02you think. I I quote one of the smear
28. 1:05artists himself. It kind of gave me
29. 1:06chills when he said, "Everything you see
30. 1:08is put there for a reason." He said it's
31. 1:10like a movie
32. 1:11um that every It's like a scene in a
33. 1:13movie that the images that you come
34. 1:14across, whether it's what a comedian
35. 1:16jokes about on a national program,
36. 1:18whether it's social media, whether it's
37. 1:20on the news, he says it's put there for
38. 1:21a reason, often by somebody who paid a
39. 1:23lot of money to put it there.
40. 1:26She points to this past election as a
41. 1:28primary example of the smear machine
42. 1:30operating at full speed. There was the
43. 1:32idea that maybe in the past
44. 1:34conservatives have had the edge, but for
45. 1:362016 going into that race, uh all seemed
46. 1:38to agree Democrats had controlled the
47. 1:40messaging, particularly when it came to
48. 1:42using the news media. Uh to the extent
49. 1:45conservatives try to control the news
50. 1:47message, yes, they would like to just as
51. 1:48much, but they don't have as much of a
52. 1:50receptive ear in the news media, so
53. 1:52they're not able to do it as
54. 1:53effectively. And what you see in the
55. 1:55book, I've used their own statistics
56. 1:57from emails returned through FOIA
57. 1:59requests or sometimes by WikiLeaks.
58. 2:03These groups say how they were able to
59. 2:05influence the narrative. They name
60. 2:06names. They talk about the news
61. 2:08publications and networks that published
62. 2:10the stories they wanted them to publish.
63. 2:12I've even published emails between
64. 2:14journalists and these interests that
65. 2:15they're supposed to cover showing what I
66. 2:17call transactional journalism, which I
67. 2:19think is ethically inappropriate where
68. 2:21they're making deals with the newsmakers
69. 2:23that covers things a certain way. So
70. 2:25help me God. Although Democrats may have
71. 2:27been more effective, Republicans
72. 2:29ultimately won. Attkisson says this
73. 2:31could be because voters are becoming
74. 2:33more media-savvy. Are people getting
75. 2:36wise to these techniques? Are they
76. 2:37seeing through some of the narratives?
77. 2:39Because I think it's it's fair to say
78. 2:4190% of the news narrative was in one
79. 2:43direction, and yet Donald Trump still
80. 2:45managed to overcome what this huge
81. 2:48machine had built against him,
82. 2:50Democrats, Republicans, and the media,
83. 2:52to become president. Today one recurring
84. 2:54narrative is Russia. President Trump
85. 2:57says that this Russian probe is a
86. 2:59political witch hunt. You have James
87. 3:02Comey who admitted to leaking documents
88. 3:06to spur on the special counsel, and then
89. 3:08the special counsel is Robert Mueller,
90. 3:11who's one of his friends, and then
91. 3:12Robert Mueller goes and hires uh friends
92. 3:16of the Clintons. Is President Trump onto
93. 3:19something? Is this a political witch
94. 3:20hunt? Yes, he is onto something.
95. 3:23President Trump is correct when he says
96. 3:25uh that that this is a witch hunt in
97. 3:27some respect based on the evidence to
98. 3:29date and based on President Obama's own
99. 3:31intel experts, who not only didn't see
100. 3:33any evidence of collusion between Donald
101. 3:35Trump and the Russians by their own
102. 3:37account, um but also by the account of
103. 3:39any all public information, Democrats
104. 3:41and Republicans alike, who haven't seen
105. 3:43the connection, and yet you've seen it
106. 3:45dominate the news narrative. I call it
107. 3:48like the Brady Bunch, Marsha, Marsha,
108. 3:49Marsha, you just hear Russia, Russia,
109. 3:51Russia all the time. And there have been
110. 3:53wildly incorrect reports from some
111. 3:55formerly top, well-respected news
112. 3:57outlets in the nation about all of this.
113. 4:00And in some cases they haven't even
114. 4:01corrected or done mea culpas when what
115. 4:03they reported has been found to be
116. 4:05false. Um
117. 4:07it's not that the Russia question
118. 4:08doesn't deserve some investigation, but
119. 4:10the coverage for it is so wildly
120. 4:12disproportionate to the evidence at
121. 4:14large. Whether it's Russia coverage or
122. 4:16any other story, Attkisson says to step
123. 4:19back and ask questions. And when it
124. 4:21comes to so-called experts, are
125. 4:24fact-checkers really trustworthy?
126. 4:27I quote um some surveys and research
127. 4:30that's been done on this that found
128. 4:32indeed the fact-checkers that hold
129. 4:34themselves out to be independent, where
130. 4:36you may turn to to say, "I really want
131. 4:37to the truth about this or that, so I
132. 4:39can go to a fact-checker." Turns out
133. 4:41they're not so independent in many
134. 4:43cases. Uh take Snopes for example. We
135. 4:45found instances where they're very good
136. 4:47at fact-checking some things, but have
137. 4:49been co-opted by special interests on
138. 4:51some topics where they've put out
139. 4:52incorrect, misleading, biased, or even
140. 4:54false information. A big one to watch
141. 4:57out for, she says, is a source many of
142. 4:59us know well. You look at Wikipedia,
143. 5:01some people say for the facts, even
144. 5:03though they know volunteer editors are
145. 5:05at play, but they don't know the extent
146. 5:07to which corporate interests and big PR
147. 5:09firms pretend to be volunteer editors
148. 5:12and have developed strong editing
149. 5:13privileges to control the pages of
150. 5:16certain topics and people so that they
151. 5:18smear some people or protect others from
152. 5:21having negative things published so that
153. 5:22they're furthering certain ideas of paid
154. 5:25interests that you don't know about. If
155. 5:26there's one thing Attkisson wants you to
156. 5:29learn from her book, it's this. Nearly
157. 5:31every image that's put before them, in
158. 5:34the words of the people who operate in
159. 5:35this universe, is put before them for a
160. 5:38reason by an interest that is often not
161. 5:40disclosed. And that should make you
162. 5:41question when you see themes and memes
163. 5:44coming up on social media and common
164. 5:46ideas expressed over and over again,
165. 5:49that should make you question, who's
166. 5:50behind it? Who wants me to think this
167. 5:52way? And what is their agenda? She says
168. 5:55asking questions doesn't necessarily
169. 5:57mean a story is false, but it's
170. 5:59important to make sure you're getting
171. 6:00the whole story and approaching almost
172. 6:03every story you read with a healthy dose
173. 6:05of skepticism. For CBN News, I'm Jenna
174. 6:08Broder.