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. A second participant adds nuance to Couric’s question, pointing out that other classes besides terrorists and felons are barred from gun ownership. He then notes “what we’re really asking about is a question of prior restraint” and points out that the Constitution, in many cases, doesn’t allow prior restraint. Others pipe in, with other arguments, from other perspectives.
The eight seconds of silence in the video? That was B-roll: footage filmmakers use to add interest to voice-overs, or to show interlocutors listening. In effect, they filmed people listening to other people talk, and then plugged that footage — and some ambient noise — into the film after Couric’s question.
Countless journalists have taken a subject’s words out of context. But Couric deliberately took her subjects’ silence out of context. And it was all to aggrandize herself, make ideological enemies look bad, and make her own questioning seem so incisive as to stump all comers.
So when Trump says the media lies, is it any wonder people believe him? And it’s dangerous to give Trump credibility on this.
Reporters held Trump accountable on his pledge to give millions of dollars — that he raised in the name of veterans — to veterans’ organizations. Only after the mainstream press pointed out Trump’s unfulfilled promise did Trump write most of the checks to the vets’ groups.
In announcing these gifts, Trump blasted the media for doing their job.
A potential president attacking reporters for doing their job isn’t healthy for democracy. The best thing journalists can do to defang Trump’s attacks is not to do sleazy dishonest journalism — which most journalists don’t — and to demand accountability for colleagues who do.
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.
Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
