The Washington Post,
CNN, and apparently the NYT have all noted, although the link I got for the Times was a twitter feed link that didn't work.
Quote:
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?” 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.”
After he saw the finished product, Van Cleave emailed his concerns to Kristin Lazure, a producer at Atlas Films. “Well, that was interesting. So a ‘balanced’ piece gives 15 minutes to the pro-gun side and 1-1/2 hours to the opposition? I had no idea that was the definition of ‘balanced,’ when I was approached about this.”
Then he bored into the integrity matter:
On the question where our members were asked, “So without background checks, how do you keep guns out of the hands of felons?”: it shows our members just sitting there and then one looking down. The editors merged some “b-roll” of our members sitting quietly between questions, followed by Katie asking the felon question. I have the audio of that entire interview and I know for an absolute fact that our members immediately jumped in to answer the question and did NOT just sit there quietly. To the person watching the video, it gave the intentionally false appearance of no one in our group having an answer. Am I supposed to think that is good journalism, Kristin? I hope that in your heart of hearts that you are at least thinking to yourself, “no, it is not.”
Here’s how Lazure handled that concern: “I’m truly sorry to hear you were disappointed with the final product. We knew when we set out to make a film on such a divisive issue that we weren’t going to make everybody happy. However, we have heard from many gun owners following our screenings and the television premiere who felt we gave the issue a balanced look and reflected their views accurately.” That response, of course, doesn’t address the issue raised by Van Cleave, which he noted forcefully in his reply: “It’s not a ‘feeling’ – the 8 seconds of silence from gun owners shown after the question about felons is inexcusable. Within 1 or 2 seconds members responded to that question – like I said I have the proof. That edit actually changed the answer members gave to the question. Worse, that deception was intentional.”
This brand of defensiveness appears widespread among those associated with the documentary. 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 the Erik Wemple Blog 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. For starters, it appears to count as an admission that this segment of the documentary was edited. The artistic “pause” provides the viewer not a “moment to consider this important question”; it provides viewers a moment to lower their estimation of gun owners. That’s it. As far as the rest of the statement, adults in 2016 may no longer write the phrase “apologize if anyone felt that way” and preserve their standing as professionals. To compound matters, here’s the accompanying statement from Couric:
“I support Stephanie’s statement and am very proud of the film.”
That, from the Katie Couric of Yahoo News, of “CBS Evening News,” of “60 Minutes,” of the “Today” show and so on.
Many of those who sampled the discrepancy between the video and the audiotape were already enraged by the depiction of these gun owners. The statements from Soechtig and Couric will surely intensify the backlash, as well they should. An apology, retraction, re-editing, whatever it is that filmmakers do to make amends — all of it needs to happen here.
Note that the film producers don't deny the editing - they "provide a pause for the viewer" which just happens to involve the pro-gun interviewees sitting there silently as if they couldn't answer the question - because somehow the point of an interview isn't to have the interviewee answer, but for the audience to ponder the questions. Or maybe just to ponder the specific question the filmmaker doesn't want the interviewee to actually answer. Then, of course. we have to move on to get "Americans" opinions on background checks, again, rather than the interviewees, and those opinions are selected by the same people that just edited the footage, admitted to it, and then tried to excuse it with an "it's ok because reasons" answer.
This editorial reminds us that Couric found "deceptive editing" unacceptable when it was allegedly done to videos of Planned Parenthood - which brings up the larger issue her, which is neither gun rights nor Planned Parenthood, because either side of any debate really could have had this issue arise - never mind that the Planned Parenthood video was not made by anyone representing themselves as an unbiased media source in the first place.
This is far from the first time we've seen such an issue; in fact someone just went to the trouble of making an entire movie trying to excuse the fabrication of the Air National Guard letter making false allegations of misconduct by GWB in the 2004 election.
From the editorial:
Quote:
Of course, this type of cut-and-splice “journalism” is common these days. Journalists have been praising “The Daily Show’s” use of deceptively edited interviews for as long as “The Daily Show” has deceptively edited them. Pretty much every time we hear that some cable comedian has “destroyed” some outgroup or the views the outgroup holds, that’s thanks to deceptive editing.
Which can definitely be applied to the vapid nonsense of comedians masquerading as commentators, analysts and serious explorers of social issues everywhere, not just such Leftist darlings as Bill Maher, but the silly "Water's World" Bill O'Reilly now has on in order to take up part of his hour and reduce the effort he needs to put into shouting down people trying to answer his questions. (On occasions I happen to listen to Maher, I actually agree with him about 50% of the time, but even when I do it's the agreement of listening to a cocky high school kid present something that you basically agree with but wish it was almost anyone else saying. Maher, of course, does not have the excuse of being a teenager and seems to think sarcastic vitrol and unsophisticated self-assuredness is a substitute for both comedy AND journalism- he's not even particularly funny.)
The thing is though, that it is clearly not just comedians "destroying" people with deceptive editing, purportedly serious "journalists" do too. We just got done hearing about the Facebook thing, although at least there Zuckerberg had the fortitude to directly meet and address concerns and was either sincere enough or a good enough poker player that he managed to appease those meeting with him.
Of course, I'm sure that some people will want to excuse this with "B-But FOX News!" and such, except for the fact that if FOX does it and gets caught at it, the rest of the press and the Left will be right there hounding them. There is no shortage of scrutiny aimed at FOX and its ilk already. FOX is just as guilty as any other news outlet of self-policing only when caught, but there is a lot more effort put into doing the catching aimed at FOX - unlike more "mainstream" news places where an error is excused with the mealy-mouthed half-apology cited above, and which their compatriots are only too eager to accept as a
mea culpa to both capitalize on the embarrassment by boosting their own ratings and readership in the short term, bolstering confidence in themselves by appropriately wagging their fingers at the miscreants, and then hastily dismissing it while keeping the Planned Parenthood video on the back burner for occasional less-than-neutral coverage on slow days.
The fundamental problem we have in this country is that we are overrun with "journalists" that are really in journalism to present the issues as they see them. It's not merely a matter of unavoidable bias, but of a feeling that reducing bias
simply isn't important and that objections by people on the receiving end of that bias can be dismissed or given merely
pro forma attention because they're Just So Wrong. After all, we know that all
right-thinking people want more gun regulation (or whatever) and anyone opposing it is obviously an idiot redneck so we can edit out their answers and let the public "contemplate these important questions."
The journalistic profession in general is in dire need of serious, neutral, self-enforced ethics practices not just lip service to journalistic ethics at educational institutions and emergency condemnation when someone gets caught at this sort of thing. A couple good starting points would be to stop representing the crass, shallow "journalism" of comedians as anything but entertainment, and maybe hand out the Brian Williams treatment to people that get caught doing more than just misrepresenting their personal history.
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