Gun Rights Group Files $12 Million Suit Against Katie Couric Over Deceptive Edit

September 13, 2016

The Virginia gun rights group whose members were deceptively portrayed in Katie Couric’s documentary Under the Gun filed a $12 million defamation lawsuit against the Yahoo News anchor on Tuesday.

The Virginia Citizens Defense League filed the suit in federal court against Couric, as well as the documentary’s director Stephanie Soechtig, Atlas Films, and the cable channel Epix.

“We were horrified to see how Couric and her team manipulated us and the video footage to make us look like fools who didn’t stand up for the Second Amendment,” said Philip Van Cleave, the group’s president. “We want to set the record straight and hold them accountable for what they’ve done. You shouldn’t intentionally misrepresent someone’s views just because you disagree with them.”

A portion of the documentary appeared to show Couric stumping several of the group’s members with a question about background checks and terrorism.

“If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” Couric asked the group. The film then shows the group sitting silently for nine seconds before cutting away from the interview.

As the Washington Free Beacon reported in May, raw audio of the exchange showed that gun rights activists immediately offered answers to Couric’s questions.

The Free Beacon later reported on accusations that Couric’s previous documentary, Fed Up, also had deceptively edited interviews. The Weinstein Company attempted to take down video clips at the center of the story shortly after they were posted to YouTube. The videos were temporarily pulled from YouTube, but were eventually reinstated.

Van Cleave said he was upset that the gun documentary was still available with the misleading edit included.

“Katie Couric has publicly admitted that ‘Under the Gun’ was misleading and misrepresented VCDL, but has done nothing to fix it or stop promoting and distributing it,” Van Cleave said.

Libby Locke, the group’s lawyer, called Couric and Soechtig “manipulators” and accused them of misleading members about how they’d be portrayed in the film.

“They manipulated the footage to manufacture a fictional exchange that never happened,” she said. “And, worst of all, they manipulated their own audience into believing that the VCDL members had been stumped by this Katie Couric question. This lawsuit is really the only way to hold Katie Couric and Stephanie Soechtig accountable for their misleading journalism.”

She said the $12 million lawsuit was necessary to recoup the damage done to the reputations of the group’s members, especially the reputations of members who make their living in the firearms industry.

“When you harm someone’s reputation and their livelihood those are serious damages that have been caused,” Locke said. “The number was selected to represent the seriousness of the damage that has been caused.”

Locke said she and the group are confident the suit will succeed.

An Epix spokeswoman dismissed the lawsuit as meritless and said that the channel should not have been included as a party to the lawsuit.

“The claims against EPIX in this lawsuit are completely without merit,” said Nora Ryan, the Epix spokeswoman. “’Under the Gun’ premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it received critical acclaim. EPIX saw the Sundance screening and acquired the documentary at that time. The network had no role in its creation or production and should therefore not be a party to this lawsuit.

A comment request sent through the Under the Gun website was not immediately returned.

UPDATE 1:15 P.M.: This post was updated to reflect comment from an Epix spokesperson.

UPDATE 2:10 P.M.: This post has been updated with a revised statement from Epix. The first comment submitted by Epix began, “This lawsuit is completely without merit…”


http://freebeacon.com/issues/gun-rights-group-files-12-million-suit-katie-couric-deceptive-edit/

don't documentaries normally do 'selective' editing..


especially political ones?

This could be an interesting precedent if successful

I imagine it would send shock waves through both entertainment news and info news

right? being able to sue for 'false' representation based upon how editing makes people appear,,,,


interesting is the perfect word for it,,,,

Fitting and proper are better words

good,MSM might yet learn!

The people who don't like Couric might be celebrating this, and hoping for success, but they shouldn't do that. If they succeed, then hundreds of people they DO like, will be in the chopping block the next day.

That's always the problem with basing your ideas about rights and freedoms and laws on your emotions. You tend to forget that in the legal world, whatever you do, can and will happen to you too.

Personally, I suspect that this is another show trial/lawsuit, specifically aimed at affecting the upcoming elections. Not a serious attempt to overturn the First Amendment to the Constitution, as it would be if it were serious.

Brutal Meme OWNS Katie Couric On Personal Responsibility [VIDEO]

http://rightwingnews.com/meme/brutal-meme-owns-katie-couric-personal-responsibility/

Hardly! She was cold a$$ busted editing video to alter an outcome or message..... propaganda 101

Your thinking like a Dumocrat!..... "The American people are too stupid for the truth or their own opinion"

It was an independent film for a contest of some sort , want it?

mainstream political 'documentaries' do this all the time,, cant think of one that didn't selectively edit things to fit the political point its directors wanted to make

not one

so it will be interesting, if its successful, how it may affect all the other 'documentaries' about some or another politician,,,,


or cause

As you often do, in your eagerness to push your own biased views, you failed to read and understand anything at all that I wrote, despite quoting it.

I didn't even remotely suggest that anything Couric did was admirable or honest or honorable. I pointed out that filing a lawsuit in this way is a mistake, for anyone who wants to retain freedom of speech.

By the say, you spelled another word wrong above. That sort of error is probably contributing to your misunderstanding what people say.

” Now, it’s coming back to haunt her.

Couric is now being sued for $12 million by the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a Second Amendment advocacy group.

A few months after it was released in January, the documentary came under fire due to a scene in which Couric appeared to stump gun rights advocates with the question: “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?”

The question is followed by a solid 10 seconds of complete silence as members of the VCDL appear perplexed -- but that's not what really happened.

In the uncut footage, VCDL affiliates responded to Couric's question for nearly six minutes, as described in the complaint for the lawsuit. Daniel Hawes, one of the gun rights advocates suing Couric and a lawyer who deals with firearms cases, apparently responded to the question by saying:

    “The fact is we do have statutes, both at the federal and state level that prohibit classes of people from being in possession of firearms. If you’re under 18, in Virginia, you can’t walk around with a gun. If you’re an illegal immigrant, if you’re a convicted felon, if you’ve been adjudicated insane, these things are already illegal. So, what we’re really asking about is a question of prior restraint. How can we prevent future crime by identifying bad guys before they do anything bad? And the simple answer is, you can’t.

    And, particularly, under the legal system we have in the United States, there are a lot of Supreme Court opinions that say, ‘No, prior restraint is something that the government does not have the authority to do.’ Until there is an overt act that allows us to say, ‘That’s a bad guy,’ then you can’t punish him.”

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/katie-courics-bias-backlash/
* More on link*
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Katie Couric & Gun Rights: A Study in Dishonesty | National Review

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436007/katie-couric-gun-rights-study-dishonesty/

What Katie Couric did was to perpetrate a falsehood. That should be the sort of thing that gets you fired, but it isn’t.
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Katie Couric Edited Gun Rights Activist Documentary To Make It Look Like Panelists Couldn’t Answer Her Question

http://www.inquisitr.com/3136965/katie-couric-edited-gun-rights-activist-documentary-to-make-it-look-like-panelists-couldnt-answer-her-question/

The question was. If there are no background checks how do you prevent a terrorist or felon walking in to a gun store and purchasing a gun.

Can anyone point out where in the 4 minutes of audio an answer was given that wasn’t. “you can't”?
That 4 minutes to me is equivalent to 4 minutes of silence


Have to admit I did hear them say a felon can't because of existing law
A bit of my denial bias showing lol