MSNBC refuses to apologize for their deceptively edited video of Neil Heslin, whose son was killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting, being “heckled” by gun rights activists.
This is a recurring pattern for NBC News; they have selectively edited three videos over the past year to frame a left-wing narrative. This time, Martin Bashir showed a grossly truncated version of the Heslin appearance at a legislative hearing on gun control.
When the full version was revealed, all the media outlets retracted their mischaracterization of the gun rights advocates–except for MSNBC.
Yesterday, Bashir’s replacement, Ari Melber of The Nation magazine tried to bluster his way past the problem before he finally played the unedited video:
On Monday on our program, we aired a portion of a hearing where we heard from Neil Heslin whose 6-year-old son Jesse was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We have received a number of comments over the past two days so we’re going to play the relevant portion of that testimony in full… Martin and many others who saw Mr. Heslin’s testimony have called that interruption heckling. Some disagree. He wanted you to hear it in full so you can draw your own conclusion.
Of course, Bashir wasn’t around to take the heat. Or offer an apology. Or instruct someone at MSNBC to come clean.