Katie Couric and director Stephanie Soechtig are being sued for defamation after they inappropriately edited their gun-control documentary to make gun-rights activists look bad.
Back in May, Stephen Gutowski of the Washington Free Beacon released audio from Couric’s interview with gun-rights group Virginia Citizens Defense League, which was interviewed by Couric and Soechtig for their documentary, “Under the Gun.” In the film, Couric asks members of the group: “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?”
In the movie, the group members appear to sit in silence for nine agonizing seconds afterward, apparently unable to come up with an answer. But the audio Gutowski provided shows that the members of the group did immediately give answers to Couric’s question. Right away, they began discussing background checks and the “classes of people” who are already legally barred from owning a firearm, and various issues pertaining to pre-emptive law enforcement.
“So, what we’re really asking about is a question of prior restraint,” one says. How can we prevent future crime by identifying bad guys before they do anything bad? And, the simple answer is you can’t. And, particularly, under the legal system we have in the United States, there are a lot of Supreme Court opinions that say, ‘No, prior restraint is something that the government does not have the authority to do.’ Until there is an overt act that allows us to say, ‘That’s a bad guy,’ then you can’t punish him.”
Yet in the film, it appears no one in the group has an answer to Couric’s question.
Now VCDL is suing Couric and Soechtig for “false and defamatory footage,” according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by the gun-rights website Bearing Arms. VCDL alleges in the lawsuit that Couric and Soechtig “manipulated the footage in service of an agenda: They wanted to establish that there is no basis for opposing universal background checks by fooling viewers into believing that even a panel of pro-Second Amendment advocates could not provide one.”
VCDL claimed Couric and Soechtig “acted with actual malice” by telling members of the group to sit silently for 10 seconds while they allegedly calibrated recording equipment. It was this clip, the group believes, that was used in the film to make them appear unable to answer the question.
In addition to deceptively editing, the group alleges that filmmakers used lighting trickery to make them appear sinister, while portraying gun-control activists in a more positive light.
“After confirming that the VCDL members oppose background checks, the film cuts to interviews with two anti-gun advocates. In contrast to the dark and shadowy lighting that the Defendants used for the VCDL members, the Defendants filmed the anti-gun advocates in bright light against bright backgrounds and intentionally did not cast shadows on their faces,” the lawsuit said.
Soechtig initially responded to the original controversy by claiming she wanted “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.” No one bought this implausible explanation.
That she and Couric behaved unethically seems very obvious, but that doesn’t mean a court will find them liable for defamation. Eugene Volokh, a law professor who specializes in First Amendment issues, told the Washington Examiner that VCDL will have a tough time making its case.
“This is of course a matter of degree, but I’m inclined to say that the deceptive editing here didn’t qualify as sufficiently reputation-injuring: Falsely showing people as lacking a good answer to a political debate in which they are involved just isn’t enough,” Volokh wrote in an email. “Perhaps it might be if the person was being shown as totally incompetent in his chosen profession, e.g., a doctor not having a good answer to the question, ‘I’m feeling sudden chest pain, and I have a history of heart disease; should I call 911?'”
He added: “But showing someone — again, even as a deliberate distortion — as being stumped by a political question doesn’t really ‘throw … shame or disgrace upon him’ (though it might throw mild discomfort or unmerited mild disapproval).”
One of the attorneys representing VCDL is Libby Locke, who is also the attorney for another high-profile defamation lawsuit. Locke is representing Nicole Eramo, the University of Virginia dean who was portrayed as callous and indifferent to sexual assault accusers in a now-retracted article in Rolling Stone. The central story of the article — a woman being gang-raped as part of a fraternity initiation — was proven to be a hoax.
VCDL is seeking $12 million plus additional damages.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
