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The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple provides a good example of lying leftist liberals in the media in his post on Katie Couric’s recent documentary on guns.
It looks as though Katie Couric stunned her interviewees. Knocked them out with a bombshell inquiry: “Let me ask you another question: If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” Now check out the blank stares.
Nearly 10 seconds of silence, as if no one has an answer to Couric’s rather straightforward question. The scene comes from “Under the Gun,” a film written, produced and directed by Stephanie Soechtig and narrated by Couric, the global anchor for Yahoo News; Couric also serves as executive producer. The session depicted in the video above features Couric and members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a group whose motto is “Defending Your Right to Defend Yourself.”
And to hear the VCDL tell the story, those awkward seconds are a fabrication, a byproduct of deceptive editing. To prove the point, VCDL President Philip Van Cleave has released an audiotape of the session, which is available on the site of the Washington Free Beacon as part of a story by Stephen Gutowski. In that recording, the question from Couric is a bit different from the one in the video. She says, “If there are no background checks, how do you prevent — I know how you all are going to answer this, but I’m going to ask it anyway. If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from walking into, say, a licensed gun dealer and purchasing a gun?”
On the audiotape, a reply comes immediately from one of the VCDL members: “Well, one — if you’re not in jail, you should still have your basic rights.” More chatter follows.
In an interview with the Erik Wemple Blog, Van Cleave said, “My teeth fell out of my head when I saw that.” The result of the editing, he says, is that folks who view the documentary are “going to say these people are idiots. It affects all the gun owners.” Other scenes in the documentary, says Van Cleave, “accurately” represent the input of his fellow gun owners. But not the exchange on background checks. “This was beyond the pale.” Van Cleave says he has audio of the entire interview with Couric — a backstop against bogus editing that he learned from his dealings with the media. “I do that as a matter of course when I’m doing things like that,” says Van Cleave. “It has saved me a few times.” …
… Moments ago, the film’s people released this statement from Soechtig:
“There are a wide range of views expressed in the film. My intention was to provide a pause for the viewer to have a moment to consider this important question before presenting the facts on Americans’ opinions on background checks. I never intended to make anyone look bad and I apologize if anyone felt that way.”
Here at the Erik Wemple Blog we stroke our gray beard and reflect: In the years we’ve covered and watched media organizations, we’ve scarcely seen a thinner, more weaselly excuse than the one in the block above. …
Mollie Hemingway has a good memory. She notes Couric defended Planned Parenthood with claims of doctored footage, then does the exact same thing. And by the way, independent reviews showed the PP film was not edited with intended malice. Which is what Katie did.
… This willful and malicious doctoring of evidence to support an agenda is so unconscionable that even CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and other media outlets made note of it.
Couric should have disclaimed the documentary and publicly acknowledge her error. Instead, the film’s director Stephanie Soechtig indirectly admitted she spliced in false footage when she issued the following statement:
My intention was to provide a pause for the viewer to have a moment to consider this important question before presenting the facts on Americans’ opinions on background checks. I never intended to make anyone look bad and I apologize if anyone felt that way.
This mealy mouthed mush was described as an apology at CNN while The Washington Post openly mocked the “apologize if” construction of the response. Erik Wemple of the Post added that he’d never seen a “thinner, more weaselly excuse” than the one proffered by Soechtig. For her part, Couric said “I support Stephanie’s statement and am very proud of the film.” …
… Indeed, when Katie Couric ran interference for Cecile Richards (Head of Planned Parenthood), doing a lengthy sit-down puffball interview and a tour of an abortion clinic where she didn’t once mention, uh, abortion, she twice decried the videos as “edited.” Couric is a long-time pro-abortion activist, not just using the mainstream media to advocate it, but having marched in support of the right to end unborn human lives. Last week on David Axelrod’s podcast, she said that her parents were major influences on her, specifically citing her mother’s volunteer work for Planned Parenthood and the fact that her mother invested in Trojan condoms when she learned about the AIDS crisis. Classy!
An accompanying write-up of the Cecile Richards interview falsely stated:
The videos, some of which were edited together in a way to depict Planned Parenthood employees talking about selling fetal tissue, which is illegal, rocked the organization.
The media have straight-up adopted Planned Parenthood’s false “deceptively edited” talking points and carried the water for Planned Parenthood’s campaign against the Center for Medical Progress. Here, one of their perky own in the mainstream media is caught red-handed actually deceptively editing in the service of gun control, and the most outrage The New York Times can muster is the headline, “Audio of Katie Couric interview shows editing slant in documentary, site claims.” What a joke our mainstream media are.
Tim Carney says you can blame Couric and her ilk for Donald Trump.
Donald Trump tells us that journalists “are the most dishonest people” and are “sleaze.” This is silly.
But if my fellow journalists wonder why he gets away with his attacks and obfuscation towards the media, Katie Couric provides a good explanation.
Couric, who spent three decades as a supposedly straight-news reporter, this year narrated an anti-gun documentary. As a fig-leaf of balance, she included in the documentary an interview with Virginia Citizens Defense League. She used this as an occasion to “demolish” the gun nuts.
Reviewers got the message. The Hollywood Reporter wrote: “A group of blustery members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, however, suddenly remain painfully quiet when Couric asks them the hard questions.”
Indeed it’s painful to watch, or glorious to watch, depending on your perspective. The topic was background checks. Under current law, gun stores cannot sell a gun without conducting a background check on the buyer. If a gun owner sells his gun, however, he is not required to conduct background checks. Some gun-rights defenders oppose any mandatory background checks. No matter what, though, felons may not own guns.
“Let me ask you another question,” Couric says, as the gun-rights supporters look on, “if there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?”
One gun-defender blinks, an uncomfortable grimace on his face, as he looks to a compatriot at the table. The camera cuts to another man, quietly staring down at the table. A third man, bearded, glares without saying a word before turning his eyes down. Eight seconds of awkward silence greet Couric’s question.
Devastating.
But of course, that’s not what happened. Couric’s victims produced the audio from the meeting and published it online last week. In real life, Couric prefaces the question with “I know how you all are going to answer this, but I’m going to ask it anyway.”
Once she finishes her question, one participant immediately lays out the argument that felons, when they complete their prison sentences, should have their gun rights restored. …
… After first standing behind the filmmaker’s transparently false defense, Couric has apologized for approving the misleading edit. But her week-late, second-try apology isn’t commensurate to the crime.
On Amazon and on iTunes Thursday, you could still download the lying video. The Hollywood Reporter review is still out there, uncorrected. The film was scheduled to screen in Danbury, Conn., Thursday night, June 2.
The lying anti-gun film needs to be pulled from distribution until the lying scene is removed. Only pressure from the center-left mainstream media will make that happen. Some journalists probably hope the Couric flap can be ignored, but that would be the worst thing for a free press.
A free country requires a free press in order to hold accountable those in power — that includes the press itself.
No cartoons today. There’s nothing funny about Lyin’ Katie Couric.