Chuck Todd Apologizes for Offensive Gun Video: ‘We Clearly Got It Wrong’

“We’ve heard you,” Meet the Press host tweets

Chuck Todd on Meet the Press
NBC

Chuck Todd apologized Monday after being on the receiving end of outrage for a gun control video “Meet the Press” aired Sunday exclusively featuring African American prisoners repenting for their crimes.

“We’ve heard you. We clearly got it wrong and we are sorry,” Todd tweeted, responding to former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien and another social media user.

O’Brien had been one of the vocal critics who condemned Todd for airing a video of African American prisoners from the infamous Sing Sing prison giving advice to their 12-year-old selves — before they became perpetrators of gun violence.

“Just inappropriate,” O’Brien tweeted, referring to Todd saying, “Meet the Press should make all viewers uncomfortable at some point or we are not doing our job.”

As TheWrap reported, many social media users found the video offensive, particularly so soon after the Charleston church massacre.

“There wasn’t a terribly diverse set of people who were talking,” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said to Todd directly after the show aired the video. “Right now, we’re talking about a horrific crime committed by a white man.”

After becoming a trending topic on Twitter Sunday, Todd wrote an explanation for the video on NBC’s website, explaining that the original decision to air the video came before the Charleston shooting.

“The staff and I had an internal debate about whether to show it at all this week. When we discussed putting it off, that conversation centered around race and perception — not the conversation we wanted the segment to invoke,” Todd wrote.

“We decided against delaying the segment because we wanted to show multiple sides of what gun violence does in this country. We thought the issue of gun violence in our culture and society was an important conversation to continue — too important to put off for another week. The consequences of gun violence should not be hidden.”

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