The New York Times said Tuesday that it is investigating footage released by James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas showing the paper’s Audience Engagement Editor, Nick Dudich, making some inflammatory statements to a hidden camera reporter from Veritas.
“Based on what we’ve seen in the Project Veritas video, it appears that a recent hire in a junior position violated our ethical standards and misrepresented his role,” Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha told The Wrap. “In his role at The Times, he was responsible for posting already published video on other platforms and was never involved in the creation or editing of Times videos. We are reviewing the situation now.”
Though the video lacks much context, the footage appears to show Dudich claiming that former FBI Director James Comey was his “godfather” and that he should have “recused” himself from matters relating to Comey coverage.
“Well the Comey hearing, I should have recused myself,” he can be heard saying on camera “But I’m not ever telling anybody there that I have a tie with that or else I don’t know if they can keep me on.”
Project Veritas has a long history of selectively edited Guerilla journalism. The outfit is most famous for releasing footage in 2010 of Obama-era United States Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod, which purported to show Sherrod making racist comments. More complete footage revealed that her words has been misrepresented.
More recently the group busted CNN Associate Producer Jimmy Carr calling Presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway an “awful woman” and adding that she “looks like she got hit with a shovel.”
The Wrap reached out to Dudich, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.