Grand Rapids Reporter

A Grand Rapids health center allegedly used employees to pose as patients in a news broadcast to deceive the media and general public. 

According to Project Veritas, Cherry Medical Center in Grand Rapids took medical professionals away from their work and asked them to line up outside in a COVID-19 testing line to cause the CBS film crew to broadcast a larger turnout than was factual. 

An insider at the health center reported the deceptive action to Project Veritas, informing the organization that personnel was being placed in line for the benefit of their media appearance while actual patients were made to wait longer to be tested for COVID-19. 

The insider clarified the incident, explaining that when CBS arrived on the site, they informed the health center that they needed more people in line and requested that employees from the center be placed in the testing line. The request came as a surprise to one registered nurse who said that she did not know what was going to be asked of her. 

Despite the health care workers’ testimonies, CBS News president Susan Zirinsky negated the allegations. Zirinsky said that CBS had no knowledge of the media stunt. 

“CBS News did not stage anything at the Cherry Health facility,” Zirinsky said, according to Project Veritas. “Any suggestion to the contrary is 100% false. These allegations are alarming. 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. No one from CBS News had any knowledge of this before tonight. They also said that their actions did not prevent any actual patients from being tested. We take the accuracy of our reporting very seriously, and we are removing the Cherry Health portion from the piece.”