NPR: Katie Couric’s ‘Manipulation’ Of Gun Rights Responses ‘Unfair, Unwarranted’

On May 26, National Public Radio (NPR) weighed in on Katie Couric’s “manipulation” of gun rights responses by labeling it “unfair and unwarranted.”

NPR was reacting to the almost nine-second pause in Couric’s gun control film, Under the Gun, inserted between her question about background checks and the response by gun rights supporters.

In reality, the gun rights supporters answered immediately — even refuting Couric’s intimations about the need for more background checks. So the pause was inserted during the editing process and makes the gun rights supporters appears stumped by Couric’s question.

NPR not only described Couric’s editorial approach as “unfair and unwarranted” but also intimated it never would have released a film with such “manipulation” because NPR has higher standards. NPR reported that the decision to insert pauses into interviews to make respondents appear stumped “would not pass muster at NPR under its principles for fairness in handling interviews.”

They suggested Couric was trapped by the fact that she was not interviewing people–in this case, members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League–to actually see what they believed, but she was interviewing them to get the answers she wanted to hear.

NPR said this approach stands in stark contrast with the “ethos of straight news.” Instead of telling the real story, Couric and director Stephanie Soechtig manipulated responses to fit their own predetermined outcome.

Breitbart News previously reported that gun scholar John Lott Jr. gave a four-hour interview for Couric’s gun control film. Couric and Soechtig omitted the interview in its entirety.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.