Katie Couric Lied So You Could Feel Good about Your Opinion — Paradox

First of all, let’s get the denunciations out of the way. Couric lied, pure and simple. This manipulative editing is amateurish, absurd, cruel, dishonest and vicious. This is what a 15-year-old film student does when he wants to appear clever but is actually quite dull. There is no possible excuse for this kind of behavior in the realms of journalism or documentary filmmaking.

But let’s not lay the blame fully on Couric.

Don’t get me wrong. Couric is an adult and a serious professional and this kind of behavior should end her career. But this is also what we, in the era of Facebook and the “Daily Show,” have come to expect. This narrative is what we demand from our reality.

Let’s ask ourselves this question: Who is likely to watch this documentary? Who is the target audience? Almost certainly not pro-Second Amendment advocates. Most likely this is being marketed to a young liberal demographic, eager to see the pro-gun team DESTROYED or EVISCERATED or MOLECULARLY DISEMBOWELED or whatever gory term Salon decides to use to describe the three minutes of comic rambling mixed with heavily edited single-syllable response footage of the token conservative stupid enough to agree to a four-hour interview (from which 23 seconds can be extracted) with a “Daily Show” alum like Samantha Bee or John Oliver. Because, let’s be honest, no one watches the actual “Daily Show” anymore.

From: Katie Couric Lied So You Could Feel Good about Your Opinion — Paradox