A controversial gun documentary released this year will not be amended to note that scenes featuring pro-Second Amendment activists were deceptively edited, the film’s executive producer Katie Couric said Thursday.
“I think we have to focus on the big issue of gun violence,” the Yahoo news anchor said at an event hosted by The Wrap. “It was my hope that, when I approached this topic, that this would be a conversation starter.”
The Epix documentary, “Under the Gun,” which Couric narrated and produced, drew criticism last month after audio revealed she and director Stephanie Soechtig edited an interview with the Virginia Citizens Defense League to make its members appear foolish.
Couric admitted Thursday she “didn’t feel comfortable” with the edits, and even said she “understand the objection” from the film’s critics. Still, she added, they have no intention of going back and fixing the edits, The Wrap reported.
Couric and Soechtig tried to downplay the scandal when it first surfaced, but the director eventually owned up to doctoring the gun group interview.
Later, Couric followed suit and admitted to the deception, for which she offered an apology of sorts.
“I take responsibility for a decision that misrepresented an exchange I had with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League,” Couric said in a statement released late Monday evening.
“My question … regarding the ability of convicted felons and those on the terror watch list to legally obtain a gun, was followed by an extended pause, making the participants appear to be speechless,” she added. Raw audio from the interview showed there was no such pause, and that the gun supporters had ready answers to her question.
Couric’s statement, which was published on the “Under the Gun” website, included a partial transcript of her interview with the gun rights activists. But the Virginia Citizens Defense League rejected her apology.
“Years from now, long after the so-called apology website is gone, this gun-control manifesto will be considered the correct version of events,” the group’s president said.
Couric and Schoetig have also been accused of deceptively editing a second documentary, 2014’s “Fed Up.” Like “Under the Gun,” Allison and Gable’s sources say their interviews were edited in such a way as to make them look foolish, unprepared and uniformed, and to make it appear as if the filmmaker’s landed crushing “gotcha” questions.
Neither Couric nor Schoetig have responded to the Examiner‘s request for comment regarding the edits in “Fed Up.” They would not say if they would make the raw, uncut interview footage from “Fed Up” available so that viewers can see for themselves whether Allison was rocked by a smashing Couric “gotcha.”
