Katie Couric Accepts Blame for ‘Misleading’ Edit in Gun Documentary
EPIX has removed the documentary from their website.
Katie Couric has changed her mind and finally decided to take responsibility for an edit in her “Under the Gun” documentary that made a pro-gun rights group look idiotic.
She released this statement last night:
As Executive Producer of “Under the Gun,” a documentary film that explores the epidemic of gun violence, I take responsibility for a decision that misrepresented an exchange I had with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL). My question to the VCDL regarding the ability of convicted felons and those on the terror watch list to legally obtain a gun, was followed by an extended pause, making the participants appear to be speechless.
When I screened an early version of the film with the director, Stephanie Soechtig, I questioned her and the editor about the pause and was told that a “beat” was added for, as she described it, “dramatic effect,” to give the audience a moment to consider the question. When VCDL members recently pointed out that they had in fact immediately answered this question, I went back and reviewed it and agree that those eight seconds do not accurately represent their response.
VCDL members have a right for their answers to be shared and so we have posted a transcript of their responses here. I regret that those eight seconds were misleading and that I did not raise my initial concerns more vigorously.
I hope we can continue to have an important conversation about reducing gun deaths in America, a goal I believe we can all agree on.
EPIX, which hosted the original movie, has pulled the movie from their website without an explanation. The company originally said it “stands behind Katie Couric, director Stephanie Soechtig, and their creative and editorial judgment. We encourage people to watch the film and decide for themselves.”
Couric received more criticism than director Stephanie Soechtig, even though the director admitted she made the edit:
“I never intended to make anyone look bad and I apologize if anyone felt that way,” director Stephanie Soechtig said after conservative blogs and media outlets exposed the editing.
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“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.”
In the documentary, Couric asked members of the VCDL “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?”
The clip shows the members sitting silently for around nine seconds, but audio provided to the Washington Free Beacon‘s Stephen Gutowski shows the group provided an answer.
Here is the video, which contradicts Soechtig’s statement:
Here is the audio:
The actual interaction lasted for four minutes:
“If you’re a felon and you’ve done your time, you should have your rights,” one of the Virginians responded.
“Well the fact is, you do have statutes both at the federal and state level that prohibit classes of people from being in possession of firearms…” another man responds. “What we’re really asking about is a question of prior restraint, how can we prevent future crime by identifying bad guys before they do anything bad. And the simple answer is, you can’t.”
Philip Van Cleave, the president of the organization, said “[V]iewers are left with the misunderstanding that the members had no answer to her question” due to the deception.
[Featured image via YouTube]
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Comments
This was both a great catch and a great take-down by New Media!
Way to go!
Prog playbook; 20 million people see intentionally deceptive program; 10,000 see the apology tour. Damage done, as intended; now pretend to be “sorry” for the mistake. Game, set, match. Works every time.
as she described it, “dramatic effect,”
Dramatic effect means fiction. She’s just admitted that she knew perfectly well that she was piddling imaginary swill.
When VCDL members recently pointed out that they had in fact immediately answered this question
“Pointed out”? They didn’t point it out, they proved it, and caught her with her little gun-control pants down. Without the proof, she’d have continued to deny that there was even a “dramatic effect” involved.
Now the mystery; the people she tried to make look like hammerheads knew that she’d pull a trick like this; that’s why they had the foresight to make their own recording.
But … if they knew that she’d try to pull a fast one, why did they have anything to do with her silly program at all?
At some point, it’s Charlie Brown’s fault for playing the game when inductive logic tells him that Lucy’s going to pull the football away again.
She successfully made them look like troglodytes, and they made it easy for her by sitting there and being victims.
Dramatic effect means fiction.
Yep. Another morality play brought to you by the clergy of Progressivism, the Fourth Estate/ Fifth Column.
What they did amount to an outright lie. A fabrication.
They willfully attempted to discredit those they interviewed with this stunt.
Couric and director Stephanie Soechtig are now numbered among the low-life skum that cannot be trusted, and that bottom feed on lower information voters.
Shephanie’s non-apology amounts to “I’m sorry I was caught and that you felt offended.”
She is clearly not sorry that she misused the trust of people that she attempted to discredit with this malicious offense.
So in her apology she still spins the issue by posing the question and not providing their response.
Not accepted.
What couric and her obnoxious director did was no different than what the photographer for Univision did in San Diego did by showing some of the Mexican protesters how to pose for his shots. Then when they are caught they admit they were manipulating the story but, oh well. Liberals live and breathe the old adage, “If you rip a feather pillow apart in the wind you can never find and put all of them back into the pillow case again.” This is the way liberal lies work in the msm and they are happy with it. When their lies are discovered and they admit them they know that most people will never see the admission or the apology.
Washington Examiner says that the video is still on EPIX.
Couric said she made the documentary because she “wanted to know what they [gun rights supporters] were afraid of.”
That’s one of the shibboleths of the left: That the US is a “nation of fear” and that’s why we “cling” to our guns, etc. In fact, we are a nation of freedom-loving people and we don’t need to justify our right to own a gun to Couric or anyone else.
Caught bullshitting … try to talk themselves out of it with more bullshit.
Typical.
VCDL has basically rejected her apology. From their member email of 5/31 at 4:50 PM.
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On Monday, Katie Couric issued a public apology about her purposely deceptive editing of the answers VCDL members gave to a question about felons and guns.
IN HER APOLOGY, KATIE HAS *AGAIN* SELECTIVELY EDITED THE RESPONSE TO THAT QUESTION!
You simply cannot make this stuff up.
On the obscure web page where Katie buries her apology, there is a transcript of the response VCDL’s members gave to katie’s question. The problem is that the transcript stops only about one-quarter of the way into the response, clipping off the most relevant parts of the answer!
And the transcript stops at a convenient place for Katie, where Patricia Webb has just asked Katie rhetorically, “Tell me one law that has ever stopped a crime from happening.” That sounds like an odd response by itself, but Pat goes on to clarify exactly what she means and it doesn’t help Katie’s case. There are other responses damning to Katie’s position on gun control, too, but none of that made it into the transcript.
All Katie had to do was put the audio of the full 4-minute response on the apology page, but she knew that people would be less likely to read a transcript than to listen to some audio. And if they did read the transcript, the last thing they read, with Katie’s edit, sounds like the group isn’t firing on all its cylinders.
If you ignore the twisting of gun-owner’s words by taking a comment out of context, KATIE STILL DOES NOT SAY SHE WILL FIX THE FILM! Instead somebody watching the film on cable will have no idea that there is an “apology” buried on the film’s website for the unethical liberties Katie took with the VCDL members’ responses. Unless the actual responses are put back in the footage where she replaced them with silence, years from now, long after the so-called apology website is gone, this gun-control manifesto will be considered the correct version of events.
No, this is NOT an apology, but Katie simply twisting the knife. She just can’t help herself, I guess. She refuses to have her push for “universal background checks” shown for the worthless bureaucratic process that it is.
_____________________________________
The VCDL email continues but duplicates much of what is in the thread here. The member email is not yet on their site ( http://www.vcdl.org ).
I disagree that Couric ‘accepted responsibility’, she merely acknowleged that a ‘misleading’ edit happened and then posted a transcription of VCLD’s comments. This was a classic ‘stump the chump’ edit, purposely designed to0 make the members of VCLD look like idiot rubes. Also note that the actual answers that VCLD gave were never aired, deceptive edit notwithstanding.
The audio shows that VCLD members gave her 4 minutes of thoughtful answer, and she chose to include none of it. She’s a dishonest, leftist hack.
In other news, Katie Couric is still in front of a camera.
Seriously- I didn’t know that.
Evil, arrogant, totally un-self-aware Peter-principled nothing, Couric is. Drunk on self-adulation and certainty that she’s smarter than anyone else.
They all catch the disease after a while. Simply inevitable, because their bosses expose them to the mirror constantly for years.
“I hope we can continue to have an important conversation about reducing gun deaths in America, a goal I believe we can all agree on.”
They are not interested in a conversation. All they want is to give a lecture, evidenced by how entities like Everytown aggressively ban anyone in disagreement, and their youtube videos always have commenting disabled.
Excuse me, but this story is NOT correct.
The documentary HAS NOT BEEN PULLED. It has simply been removed from EPIX but is STILL AVAILABLE on VOD and various pay per view outlets.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/spokeswoman-katie-couric-gun-documentary-has-not-been-pulled/article/2592626
They have a nice case for libel. Especially true since Katie frames the question by saying (during the question) “I know what your answer will be”. It would not take much for a jury to believe that she had this planned during the interview phase, not that it was an unfortunate error in the editing room by other people.
Dan Rather, Brian Williams, and now Katie Couric…