The National Review and the New York Post are leading the charge for Yahoo to fire its global news anchor Katie Couric over the controversial editing of her recent gun-control documentary “Under the Gun.”
In an opinion piece in The National Review that was picked up by the New York Post and led the paper’s homepage on Friday, attorney David French said that Couric “has lost her credibility.”
An eight-second pause inserted into an interview she did with gun rights activists in the documentary “Under the Gun” has drawn criticism, as many believe it was intentionally added to make the activists seem ignorant.
Critics are calling it an example of “deceptive” and “appalling journalism,” while an individual with knowledge told TheWrap that Couric herself is upset about the situation. Couric, who anchored the CBS Evening News from 2006-2011, joined Yahoo in 2014.
French noted that Couric has said she is “proud” of the documentary before ripping into her further: “Dear Yahoo, let me put this in plain English for you. Your premier news personality is ‘proud’ of lying. She ‘supports’ a statement that purports to justify those lies as a form of creative “pause.” This would be a firing offense at any decent opinion journal, much less an organization that purports to objectively report the news.”
The film’s director, Stephanie Soechtig, doesn’t feel she did anything wrong.
“I would never misrepresent someone’s point of view and I don’t think I did by doing this,” Soechtig, told TheWrap. “I don’t think I misrepresented gun owners or the people featured in the film.”
But French argued that “Americans can no longer trust a single news report or a single interview from Couric. They now know that she will unashamedly and proudly deceive them to advance her own ideological agenda.”
The documentary features members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League taking part in a roundtable, during which the clip appears to capture eight seconds of silence after Couric asks, “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?”
VCDL president Philip Van Cleave told the Washington Free Beacon that Couric “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.”
French’s column ends with suggestions on what “a serious news organization” would do: “Suspend Couric immediately, launch a thorough and comprehensive investigation of the VCDL’s allegations and then — if the investigation confirms the facts stated above without revealing any material mitigating circumstances — fire her.”