Names and faces
Conservative activist James O’ Keefe on Thursday released what he said are 119 hours of raw audio secretly recorded inside CNN’s Atlanta headquarters in 2009. The audio was recorded and provided to O’Keefe’s website, Project Veritas, by a source he didn’t identify. His organization promoted the tapes as exposing journalistic lapses at CNN. One excerpt reveals that CNN did not include a particular poll in its reporting eight years ago. However, it is common for news organizations to be discerning about which polls they choose to report on. “We don’t know everything that’s on the tapes. We’ve listened to a fraction of them,” O’Keefe said. While he did not explain the yearslong delay in the tapes’ release, O’Keefe has said he is targeting CNN because it “has a very important role as an arbiter of news.” CNN declined to comment. The audio was initially posted online for only a few minutes Thursday morning before the site crashed. It remained unavailable for several hours after that. In 2010, O’Keefe pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of entering federal property under false pretenses after trying to tamper with the phones in Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office.
Even though actress Octavia Spencer is pleased with the record number of black actors nominated for acting Oscars this year, she’s still disappointed by the lack of recognition foro ther people of color. “Diversity doesn’t mean just black,” Spencer said during an interview promoting her new film, The Shack. “I’m excited that more black people are being recognized. That’s what I would like to see arrive for other people of color, because they are so valued and underserved. I think when we ask the public, the paying public, to support films that don’t portray them on- screen, that’s hypocrisy.” Spencer is one of six black actors up for Academy Awards at Sunday’s ceremony. Spencer is nominated for her role in Hidden Figures. The diverse field is a far cry from the past two years, when allwhite acting nominees led to the social media hashtag # OscarsSoWhite and a national conversation on race in Hollywood. It also compelled Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, to implement a plan restructuring the organization’s membership to try to make it more reflective of women and minoritygroups members.