AP: NBC Refused to Address Question of Deceptive Edit

AP actually calls NBC out for this. I made this point yesterday: NBC issued a statement claiming they'd reviewed the controversy, and they decided that opinions could vary on whether or not the father was "heckled" at the proceeding.

That's a whitewash in and of itself (no, there is no question), but the characterization of the controversy as such is itself deceptive: The real question -- and there is no question about the answer to this question -- was whether or not NBC

once again

doctored video or audio to create a false impression for purposes of sensationalizing a story for its liberal partisan audience.

Because that question has a brutally simple answer -- "Yes" -- NBC just pretended it wasn't a question at all.

And AP does in fact notice this.

MSNBC invited viewers Wednesday to draw their own conclusions about whether the parent of a Connecticut school shooting victim was heckled at a legislative hearing but didn't address criticism that it aired a deceptively edited video of the event.

The NBC-owned cable news network found itself under attack for its editing practices less than a year after three employees of NBC or an NBC-owned station lost their jobs over the editing of a 911 call in the Trayvon Martin case.

...

The passage as aired by MSNBC received criticism for being deceptive.

"This is not how a legitimate, professional news organization operates," said Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog. "MSNBC's relentless anti-gun advocacy is bad enough, but this is downright dishonest."

MSNBC spokeswoman Lauren Skowronski did not immediately address questions about why MSNBC made the changes or whether criticism that it was misleading is valid.

posted by Ace at 12:44 PM

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