sonicmaster577
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"She was extremely careless, but no reasonable attorney would hold her accountable"
VCDL Sues Katie Couric
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Carl N. Brown
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http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/katie-couric-cleared-12m-lawsuit-gun-club-article-1.3211249
"Katie Couric cleared in $12M lawsuit over ‘Under the Gun’ documentary", Daily News,
The judge's reason was quoted as "Not having an answer to a specific question about effective alternatives to background checks does not imply anything about fitness to own a gun store and to sell guns.”
I recall that the issue was Couric asked a question about background checks and was almost immediately answered. The "documentary" of the interview film version adds eight seconds of silence to make it appear the dealers were clueless and had no response.
I feel the judge missed the point of the lawsuit.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3762263/Underthegun.pdf
VCDL v Katie Couric, Civil Action No. 3:16-cv-00757-JAG
The full text of the judge's decision also described how the video was edited to put the dealers silent in a pre-question video check AFTER the question was asked, to make it appear they had no answer to the question.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...-defamation-lawsuit-against-katie-couric.html
"Katie Couric defamation lawsuit dismissed", Fox News, 1 Jun 2017.
Fox News noted that last year Couric stated:
"I take responsibility for a decision that misrepresented an exchange I had with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL)," Couric wrote last year. "My question to the VCDL regarding the ability of convicted felons and those on the terror watch list to legally obtain a gun, was followed by an extended pause, making the participants appear to be speechless.... I regret that those eight seconds were misleading and that I did not raise my initial concerns more vigorously."
The extended pause was cut from before the video and sound check, and moved after the question was asked and before the dealers answered, to give the false impression that the dealers had no ready answer to Couric's question.
So the media can edit video or audio of an event to create a false impression and that's "documentary" and not "defamation".
"Katie Couric cleared in $12M lawsuit over ‘Under the Gun’ documentary", Daily News,
The judge's reason was quoted as "Not having an answer to a specific question about effective alternatives to background checks does not imply anything about fitness to own a gun store and to sell guns.”
I recall that the issue was Couric asked a question about background checks and was almost immediately answered. The "documentary" of the interview film version adds eight seconds of silence to make it appear the dealers were clueless and had no response.
I feel the judge missed the point of the lawsuit.
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3762263/Underthegun.pdf
VCDL v Katie Couric, Civil Action No. 3:16-cv-00757-JAG
The full text of the judge's decision also described how the video was edited to put the dealers silent in a pre-question video check AFTER the question was asked, to make it appear they had no answer to the question.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...-defamation-lawsuit-against-katie-couric.html
"Katie Couric defamation lawsuit dismissed", Fox News, 1 Jun 2017.
Fox News noted that last year Couric stated:
"I take responsibility for a decision that misrepresented an exchange I had with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL)," Couric wrote last year. "My question to the VCDL regarding the ability of convicted felons and those on the terror watch list to legally obtain a gun, was followed by an extended pause, making the participants appear to be speechless.... I regret that those eight seconds were misleading and that I did not raise my initial concerns more vigorously."
The extended pause was cut from before the video and sound check, and moved after the question was asked and before the dealers answered, to give the false impression that the dealers had no ready answer to Couric's question.
So the media can edit video or audio of an event to create a false impression and that's "documentary" and not "defamation".
Some posts which didn't contribute to a discussion of the legal issues have been deleted. I'll leave this thread open for a while to see if anyone has anything to add regarding the judge's ruling and the legal issues. You will need to read the ruling, and discussion will need to be based on the ruling.
If I don't start to see productive discussion soon, I'll close the thread.
If I don't start to see productive discussion soon, I'll close the thread.
The courts give "journalists" (even the liars) a lot of leeway, otherwise lawsuits, justified or not, could effectively negate the First Amendment. It is unfortunate that "freedom of the press" is often used to attack the "right to bear arms", since both are needed to ensure real freedom. The two amendments are like the bank guard in that commercial - the First Amendment ensures that the people know their freedom is in danger, the Second Amendment ensures that they have the power, as a last resort, to do something about it. The First Amendment alone, like that unarmed bank guard, can only tell us what an evil government is doing; it cannot give us the means to do anything about it.
Jim
Jim
CapnMac
Member
I find it slightly chilling that part of this issue is in "added silence."
Because that added silence represents something requiring supposition and/or opinion, which are not necessarily items fo legal facts, that can be found by way of disposition and forensics.
So, the judge was quite right in that, a question was asked, and was answered. The length of time involved, any emphasis dramatica, are not subject to legal opinion. (Just how a person might argue that is something that piques my curiosity, but is not germane to this present topic.)
Because that added silence represents something requiring supposition and/or opinion, which are not necessarily items fo legal facts, that can be found by way of disposition and forensics.
So, the judge was quite right in that, a question was asked, and was answered. The length of time involved, any emphasis dramatica, are not subject to legal opinion. (Just how a person might argue that is something that piques my curiosity, but is not germane to this present topic.)
Actually not.
From the ruling:
“The plaintiffs' defamation claims fail because the interview scene is not false. Under the Gun portrays members of the VCDL not answering the question posed by Couric. In reality, members of the VCDL did not answer the question posed by Couric. They talked about background checks and gun laws generally, but did not answer the question of how to prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing guns without background checks. The editing simply dramatizes the sophistry of the VCDL members.” Ibid
Indeed.
Whatever the ‘point’ of the lawsuit, it must still comport with state defamation case law, which it did not.
Last, having read the ruling, we can come to only one of two conclusions:
That either VCDL’s lawyers were comprehensively ignorant of long-standing, settled and accepted defamation jurisprudence, or that the lawsuit was filed in bad faith, where VCDL was fully aware of the fact that the suit was devoid of merit, and pursued solely for political reasons.
Trunk Monkey
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When you voluntarily go to an interview involving statements of opinion in which the interviewer has editorial control of the resulting product, you have a limited number of bases upon which to challenge the result in court.
Years ago, in a public forum broadcast on PBS, the head of a large corporation told Mike Wallace he would not agree to be interviewed by him because no matter what the questions were or how he responded, he felt he would be presented in a bad light. In spite of that caution - and decades of similar media interviews - the VDCL assented to attend Katie Couric's interview. Other than what they got - what did they realistically expect?
People who are not familiar with television interviews or how such interviews can be lawfully edited should not agree to appear on camera.
CapnMac
Member
Too true.
However, by "chilling" what I meant was that, before, interviewers were free to recut, rearrange an interview to reflect whatever they intended it to so do. The simple answer to that, was to only agree to an interview if you could also have your own video. Which meant meaning having another set of facts to be interpreted in a finding of fact.
Whereas a pause, inserted in post production, could have many reasons. Which means the finding of fact is a disputation over video editing, not of the actual "meat" of the issue at hand.
Let's say the legal team for VDCL had introduced a tape of their own which showed no pause. Like as not, it would wind up being a discourse on technical editing skills, and not a deliberate defamation. It would demonstrate only a technical mismatch, not mens rea. The mens rea argument already being deflated by Ms Couric's statement that none existed. Which also means it could have been put off as simple incompetence by some un-named junior video error.
wojownik
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I tend to agree with the below. Inserting a pause for dramatic effect does not necessarily infer some form of libel, and there can be many reasons argued for insertion of the pause - ranging from "artistic" to bad editing.
Was it bad journalism? Yes, and once upon a time could have been a career ender .... but this is a different day and age, and journalistic ethics pretty much evaporated long ago.
Was it unwise? I think, yes. If the intent was to bolster the anti-2a argument, then it backfired because it proved just the kind of liberal bias that many have been pointing out. It would have been more powerful to add narrative or a follow up question pushing the point that the VCDL members were not (or could not) directly answer the question as posed.
Was the judge's dismissal proper? In this case, I think yes. However the polemics deeply disturb me, such as the judge's reference to VCDL's "sophistry." Which infers bias on the judges own part - a statement he should not have made. And a statement that will likely come up in the VDCL appeal, which was filed shortly after the dismissal. Sophistry is not being unable to answer a question, or fumbling around giving a poor answer. Sophistry is the act of deceiving someone by making a seemingly clever but false argument with the intent to deceive. VCDL had a rather unclever response, essentially to a different question, and I won't judge the intent.
So, the irony is that VCDL went in with an (specious) defamation suit against Couric, and left being chided and possibly defamed by the judge himself.
Now it goes to a three-judge panel. Likely to be dismissed again. I think the most that VCDL can hope for is for the appeals court to chide the judge for that statement, and even that might be a real stretch.
Was it unwise to file and suit (and the appeal)? Perhaps. If filed for political reasons, as surmised below, it just keeps pointing out that VCDL did not directly answer the question as posed.
IMHO, VDCL should be saving its attorney's fees for other and future battles.
Was it bad journalism? Yes, and once upon a time could have been a career ender .... but this is a different day and age, and journalistic ethics pretty much evaporated long ago.
Was it unwise? I think, yes. If the intent was to bolster the anti-2a argument, then it backfired because it proved just the kind of liberal bias that many have been pointing out. It would have been more powerful to add narrative or a follow up question pushing the point that the VCDL members were not (or could not) directly answer the question as posed.
Was the judge's dismissal proper? In this case, I think yes. However the polemics deeply disturb me, such as the judge's reference to VCDL's "sophistry." Which infers bias on the judges own part - a statement he should not have made. And a statement that will likely come up in the VDCL appeal, which was filed shortly after the dismissal. Sophistry is not being unable to answer a question, or fumbling around giving a poor answer. Sophistry is the act of deceiving someone by making a seemingly clever but false argument with the intent to deceive. VCDL had a rather unclever response, essentially to a different question, and I won't judge the intent.
So, the irony is that VCDL went in with an (specious) defamation suit against Couric, and left being chided and possibly defamed by the judge himself.
Now it goes to a three-judge panel. Likely to be dismissed again. I think the most that VCDL can hope for is for the appeals court to chide the judge for that statement, and even that might be a real stretch.
Was it unwise to file and suit (and the appeal)? Perhaps. If filed for political reasons, as surmised below, it just keeps pointing out that VCDL did not directly answer the question as posed.
IMHO, VDCL should be saving its attorney's fees for other and future battles.
Part of me doesn't like seeing the First Amendment being challenged to support the 2nd 
, but with the LSM being what it is and how much leeway is given "creative" editing license in their unrelenting attacks on The Right to Keep and Bear, I suppose this is what it comes down to sometimes.
“Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard, don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.”
--Alan Dershowitz
, but with the LSM being what it is and how much leeway is given "creative" editing license in their unrelenting attacks on The Right to Keep and Bear, I suppose this is what it comes down to sometimes.“Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard, don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.”
--Alan Dershowitz
wojownik
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Bear in mind one major thing when you quote Alan Dershowitz. He opposes attacking 2A in the courts, because of the damage it could do to individual rights in other amendments. He SUPPORTS eliminating the Second Amendment, repeatedly asserting that it is "absurd" and "has no place in modern society." Just FYI, when using quotes like this.
Now ... back your regularly scheduled Katie Couric programming...
Now ... back your regularly scheduled Katie Couric programming...
Part of me doesn't like seeing the First Amendment being challenged to support the 2nd
“Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard, don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like.”
--Alan Dershowitz
Carl N. Brown
Member
(This is in General and not in Legal but I will try to be relevant to OP#1)
The VCDL signed a paper agreeing the film* makers could edit their appearance. The edit of their response to Couric's question left their remarks on the cutting room floor and spliced eight seconds of silence, a revolver cylinder closing, then Couric's speech in favor of UBC.
The VCDL responses were not presented. They were falsely presented as being silent in response to the question.
The film editors decided not to present the response to her question but substituted eight seconds of the equipment check silence and showed a fear trigger for their intended audience** because the editors felt the VCDL responses were unresponsive.***
There is a reason smart people have "No comment" when the news media show up. The prevailing wisdom is that the media in general are partisan advocacy journalists with their sides predecided. Agreeing to cooperate with them is foolish.
The judge's value judgements -- that the unaired VCDL responses "did not answer Couric's question" so it was "not false or defamatory" to replace them with silence -- also leaves the impression that judges judge cases not solely on law and fact but let their personal feelings intrude.****
What I get out of this may be dismissed as confirmation of my own biases: the media can be expected to be unfair and unbalanced and rabble rousing, and judges can be expected to be politically biased.
I think the results of this decision are not good for the health of the body politic.
______________
* I edited "documentary" to "film". The court decision describes the piece as a film, and not as a documentary. Documentaries are produced by people like Michael Moore and Leni Riefenstahl.
** (flashing a revolver in a pro gun control film reminds me of a Goebbels film piece flashing a rat when talking about Juden)
*** The film substituted for the VCDL responses the Couric the talking point that 90% suppport background checks. 90% support for BC does not mean that 90% of the people understand and support Universal Background Check. Everytown UBC goes beyond Brady Act Background Check. Virginia State Police run $5 NICS BCs at gun shows; a UBC can cost $50 or more; UBC is not a BC, it's a sin tax.
**** I had a long talk with a member of the Reserve Officers Association at a Mensa Brunch. He told me that he had a greater expectation of justice in a court martial than in a court civilian: in a court martial, the defense and prosecution are equal rank with equal resources and the judges decide on the law and on the facts presented in the case. In court civilian, the State always has greater resources than the defense and you are likely to be prosecuted on issues that have no bearing on the law or facts of your case. Civilian juries are especially fickle.
The VCDL signed a paper agreeing the film* makers could edit their appearance. The edit of their response to Couric's question left their remarks on the cutting room floor and spliced eight seconds of silence, a revolver cylinder closing, then Couric's speech in favor of UBC.
The VCDL responses were not presented. They were falsely presented as being silent in response to the question.
The film editors decided not to present the response to her question but substituted eight seconds of the equipment check silence and showed a fear trigger for their intended audience** because the editors felt the VCDL responses were unresponsive.***
There is a reason smart people have "No comment" when the news media show up. The prevailing wisdom is that the media in general are partisan advocacy journalists with their sides predecided. Agreeing to cooperate with them is foolish.
The judge's value judgements -- that the unaired VCDL responses "did not answer Couric's question" so it was "not false or defamatory" to replace them with silence -- also leaves the impression that judges judge cases not solely on law and fact but let their personal feelings intrude.****
What I get out of this may be dismissed as confirmation of my own biases: the media can be expected to be unfair and unbalanced and rabble rousing, and judges can be expected to be politically biased.
I think the results of this decision are not good for the health of the body politic.
______________
* I edited "documentary" to "film". The court decision describes the piece as a film, and not as a documentary. Documentaries are produced by people like Michael Moore and Leni Riefenstahl.
** (flashing a revolver in a pro gun control film reminds me of a Goebbels film piece flashing a rat when talking about Juden)
*** The film substituted for the VCDL responses the Couric the talking point that 90% suppport background checks. 90% support for BC does not mean that 90% of the people understand and support Universal Background Check. Everytown UBC goes beyond Brady Act Background Check. Virginia State Police run $5 NICS BCs at gun shows; a UBC can cost $50 or more; UBC is not a BC, it's a sin tax.
**** I had a long talk with a member of the Reserve Officers Association at a Mensa Brunch. He told me that he had a greater expectation of justice in a court martial than in a court civilian: in a court martial, the defense and prosecution are equal rank with equal resources and the judges decide on the law and on the facts presented in the case. In court civilian, the State always has greater resources than the defense and you are likely to be prosecuted on issues that have no bearing on the law or facts of your case. Civilian juries are especially fickle.
Carl N. Brown
Member
The point in quoting Alan Dershowitz is to point out that other anti-gunners who pretend the 2A is not an individual right are lying to themselves and the public.
When I quote the editor of Harper's* that the 2A is an individual right and the Clinton AWB was symbolic BS, it does not mean I supported his agenda to ban handguns but leave rifles and shotguns including so-called AWs legal. I quote him (and Dershowitz) to show that honest anti-gunners admit the 2A IS an individual right and other anti-gunners are willing to lie to promote their cause.
* Published locally as "A Northerner's fear and loathing in Kingsport"
John R. MacArthur, "My compromise in the gun debate",
The Providence Journal, July 5, 2000,
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-63162862.html
MacArthur stayed at the local Mariott Hotel on business the same day as the gunshow. He wrote this editorial in response, referencing Davy Crockett and the film "Deliverance". Sullivan County Tennessee had no murders the year of his stay. Kingsport Tennessee had had no murders for three years. If we gave up our handguns, he would let us keep or rifles, shotguns, and assualt weapons. Whoop-de-DOO. The murder rate per 100,000 in his native NYC land of the Sullivan Act that year was, well, more than zero.
When I quote the editor of Harper's* that the 2A is an individual right and the Clinton AWB was symbolic BS, it does not mean I supported his agenda to ban handguns but leave rifles and shotguns including so-called AWs legal. I quote him (and Dershowitz) to show that honest anti-gunners admit the 2A IS an individual right and other anti-gunners are willing to lie to promote their cause.
* Published locally as "A Northerner's fear and loathing in Kingsport"
John R. MacArthur, "My compromise in the gun debate",
The Providence Journal, July 5, 2000,
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-63162862.html
MacArthur stayed at the local Mariott Hotel on business the same day as the gunshow. He wrote this editorial in response, referencing Davy Crockett and the film "Deliverance". Sullivan County Tennessee had no murders the year of his stay. Kingsport Tennessee had had no murders for three years. If we gave up our handguns, he would let us keep or rifles, shotguns, and assualt weapons. Whoop-de-DOO. The murder rate per 100,000 in his native NYC land of the Sullivan Act that year was, well, more than zero.
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