Ever since the assault on Fox News Contributor Steven Crowder at the hands of a a group of out-of-control union members protesting right-to-work legislation at the Michigan capitol Tuesday, Crowder, who we profiled for Red Alert’s inaugural “30 Under 30” list earlier this year, has been taking heat from the Left for the way he edited the video showing the assault. Crowder’s video of his brutal attack is being likened to conservative activist James O’Keefe’s selective editing of his investigative reporting videos, despite the fact that Crowder has no history of pulling stunts like that.
Crowder has also received criticism, including from conservatives, for putting himself in the dangerous situation in the first place and for purposefully provoking the the already fervent crowd.
I was personally skeptical of Crowder’s initial claims that he sustained injuries after being viscously assaulted by several union members until I watched the video. It was even worse than the hype surrounding it.
I wasn’t at the event, so I can’t speak to Crowder’s conduct at the day long protest. However, Jim Treacher of the Daily Caller made an excellent point on twitter about suggestions that Crowder should have known better than to put himself between union thugs and a tent full of conservative activists.
If you think those folks shoulda known better than to be in the same place as union guys, you don’t realize what that says about union guys.
— Jim Treacher (@jtLOL) December 13, 2012
What I can speak to is Crowder’s editing of the original video that shows him getting punched in the face by a union member whose jacket featured the label “Tony” – Union Ton as he is now being called by conservatives.
Crowder originally edited the video to show only the part where he was repeatedly punched in the face by Union Tony and subsequently attacked by another union member while attempting to take cover inside an Americans for Prosperity tent (it was torn down moments later). In that video, the man who attacked Crowder – Union Tony – is first seen getting up from off the ground, leading liberals to claim that Crowder showed aggression toward Tony first, knocking him down, which is why he began to assault Crowder when he stood back up.
However, the unedited video has in fact been released, and it shows that Crowder did not edit himself attacking Union Tony out of the video. The unedited video, which was shown on Hannity, shows that the camera was not focused in on Tony and Crowder at the start of the altercation.
Unfortunately it doesn’t give any other clues as to what caused Union Tony to fall down in the first place, but what can be gathered from the fast-paced video is that Crowder likely didn’t physically instigate the assault. The New York Times’ Robert Mackey, who was seen by conservatives as leading the charge to discredit Crowder’s video, has since updated his story to reflect that based on the additional footage, it doesn’t appear that Crowder began the brawl.
In an interview on the day of the incident, Crowder gave Forbes contributor Greg McNeal his theory of how Union Tony ended up the ground and why his cameraman didn’t catch the whole thing on tape.
Crowder’s explanation of what happened seems logical. In my experience, even as an above average videographer, it’s difficult even in a peaceful protest or rally to capture all the action. It’s easy to get jostled around by marchers or rally goers. Furthermore, anything can happen – it’s not as if the cameraman knew Crowder was going to get punched. Nor was he able to retroactively go back and get a better angle to prove that Crowder wasn’t the initial aggressor.
And as, Crowder also rightly told McNeal, he does not have a history of selectively editing video that would indicate he is lying about this incident.
“All of my videos, everything I upload is short and edited. I’ve been doing this for a long time, I have a catalog of several hundred videos. If people think it’s out of context, I would encourage them to look at the hours of footage from hundreds of different angles to see this was not an isolated incident.”
In an email to an undisclosed group of recipients late last night, Crowder reiterated to us that it’s not true that he”deliberately incited violence.”
“This is patently and completely false,” he said. He also claimed he was “in the process of filing a police report and pressing charges [against Union Tony.”
The DC’s Jim Treacher also pointed on twitter that if Union Tony didn’t start the fight, then why hasn’t he come forward and said so?
If the guy who punched @scrowder in the face is actually the wronged party, why hasn’t he said so?
— Jim Treacher (@jtLOL) December 13, 2012
Given the events the evidence and other videos of the events that unfolded that day at the protest, including the fact that the fanatical union members tore down a tent with women and children in it in the first place, it seems entirely unlikely that Crowder was the one who incited the violence. Instead of plotting against Crowder and reviewing his Michigan video again, and again, and again, not to mention past work, the mainstream media would be better spending its time this weekend focusing on real news, like the upcoming fiscal cliff.
