Yahoo news anchor Katie Couric is standing by her gun documentary, even after the discovery that it was selectively edited to make it appear as if she stumped gun advocates with a simple question about background checks.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner’s media desk, Couric said she is “very proud of the film.”
The documentary’s director, Stephanie Soechtig, told the Examiner, “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,” Soechtig said.
“I support Stephanie’s statement,” added Couric, who narrated and executive produced the documentary.
The Epix documentary, “Under the Gun,” shows Couric interviewing members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, which is a pro-Second Amendment activist group.
In the finalized version of the film, the anchor says to the gathering of gun rights activists, “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?”
Couric’s question is followed by eight solid seconds of awkward silence, as her previously chatty guests are reduced to staring silently at their shoes.
However, that’s not at all what happened in real life.
Uncut audio of the interview, which was obtained first by the gun blog Ammoland and published later this week by the Washington Free Beacon, reveals the gun rights activists were far better prepared to answer her question than the film suggested.
It also reveals Couric’s own question was edited.
“If there are no background checks, how do you prevent – I know how you’re all going to answer this, but I’m asking anyway – if there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun,” she actually asked.
Her guests answered her question immediately, explaining the constraints of the law and rights guaranteed all American citizens.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League is not happy with how its members were portrayed in the documentary, and the group labeled Couric’s work “unbelievable and extremely unprofessional.”
“Katie Couric asked a key question during an interview of some members of our organization,” said the group’s president, Philip Van Cleave. “She then intentionally removed their answers and spliced in nine seconds of some prior video of our members sitting quietly and not responding. Viewers are left with the misunderstanding that the members had no answer to her question.”
Epix meanwhile isn’t backing down.
“[We stand] behind Katie Couric, director Stephanie Soechtig, and their creative and editorial judgment. We encourage people to watch the film and decide for themselves,” the group said Wednesday in a statement.
The Yahoo anchor hasn’t always been on the side of selective editing.
In 2015, when Couric interviewed Cecile Richards, the anchor gave the Planned Parenthood president plenty of room to accuse a pro-life activist group, the Center for Medical Progress, of heavily editing a series of undercover videos revealing the group’s controversial practice of harvesting organs from the remains of aborted children.
Couric, whose mother volunteered for Planned Parenthood, herself repeated the charge that the videos were edited to make it seem like the nation’s largest provider of abortions was in the business of harvesting organs for profit.
“The videos, some of which were edited together in a way to depict Planned Parenthood employees talking about selling fetal tissue, which is illegal, rocked the organization,” she wrote in an article published on Nov. 10, 2015.
CMP has produced more than 20 hours of raw, uncut footage from its investigation of Planned Parenthood. Couric, along with almost every other member of the press who has repeated the “selectively edited” charge, has not said if she watched all of the tapes.
