CBS Denies Staging Coronavirus Testing Line at Medical Center, Blames Hospital Staff

CBS News pulled footage of cars supposedly lined up for coronavirus testing at the Cherry Health Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the network said Wednesday, after an allegation the line had been partially faked.

Conservative activist group Project Veritas released a video this week of an employee at hospital alleging that staffers had been told to join the line to make it look longer. “The insider told us that medical personnel were taken away from treating patients and making the line longer for actual patients waiting for the COVID-19 test,” Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe said in an announcement.

Nick Ross, a corporate cleaning site supervisor at the facility, told Project Veritas he believed CBS staffers wanted to beef up the line. “Apparently the news crew wanted more people in the line, because they knew it was scheduled,” Ross said.

“CBS News did not stage anything,” the network said in a statement to Mediaite. “Any suggestion to the contrary is 100 percent false. These allegations are deeply disturbing. 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.”

The footage was used for a story by CBS reporter Andriana Diaz about the need for more gowns and N95 masks at the facility, which included an interview with the center’s CEO and president, Tasha Blackmon.

CBS denied any involvement and said no patients were affected. “No one from CBS News had any knowledge of this. They [the center] also said that their actions did not prevent any real patients from being tested. We take the accuracy of our reporting very seriously and we are removing the Cherry Health portion from the piece.”