MSNBC misfires badly in 'heckling' story on Sandy Hook dad
Yael T. AbouhalkahMSNBC is under fire for misleading its viewers earlier this week. In this case, the network’s liberal slant caught up with it and burned it on the gun issue.
As a gun control advocate, I lament MSNBC’s mistake. It gives comfort to the NRA, conservative members of Congress and gun nuts who want to make the bizarre case that the Second Amendment must not be messed with by politicians, no matter how many children are slaughtered by these weapons.
The essential facts are here: MSNBC host Martin Bashir aired a clip that made it appear a dad of a Sandy Hook child victim was heckled (thus, rudely interrupted) by gun lovers during a public hearing Monday.
That set off the Twitter world with anger at the alleged behavior of some in the crowd, nicely fitting the MSNBC mantra that the pro-gun crowd is out of control in the debate over assault weapons and the followup to the Sandy Hook massacre.
But as fuller clips of the interview show, father Neil Heslin invited someone to comment to his question about why anyone would need assault-style weapons. After a pause, someone did.
True, it was bad form to blurt something out to what was a rhetorical question. You have to be fairly sick in the head to think it’s your place as a gun lover to lecture someone who’s just lost a child to a gun-toting murderer.
And remember, comments aren’t supposed to be permitted at these hearings, invited by the speaker or not.
Still, MSNBC and other media crossed a line by claiming Heslin was heckled, indicating he had been interrupted during his testimony. MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell tried to defend the network and the use of the word heckled, but only succeeded in diminishing his own credibility in doing so.
Phil Cardarella
4 months, 2 weeks agoI do not get what was deceptive about the edit. The shouted remark was NOT a response to the man’s question, which was WHY anyone would need such weapons, not whether someone had an opinion on Constitutional law.
This is a serious problem in this debate, because none of the gun-worshipers can answer it coherently. No one needs to be able to fire 80 rounds per minute to hunt or defend a home against an intruder. And, the weapons involved are not at all efficient for either.
AKs and large magazines are defended for two reasons: To be able to fire a lot for fun or to “resist” our own government. Most folks would hold that classrooms ful of dead children is too high a price to pay for being able to hear “bang” 30-100 times without pause. And sane people do not indulge in the seditious fantasy of shooting policemen, Federal agents or US troops on the chance you disagree with the political decisions of our elected government.
If the guy had shouted out “So I can shoot ATF agents,” it would have been a reply, and probably a truthful one, but not a popular one.
Is there an actual defense of this weaponry — a “need”? Simply shouting at a mournful parent who asks that question is NOT an answer.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 2 weeks ago“If the guy had shouted out “So I can shoot ATF agents,” it would have been a reply, and probably a truthful one, but not a popular one.” Only if it was from Mexico phillie and the person had one of the fast and furious guns zero allowed to go into Mexico…
You libs are such a hoot……
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 2 weeks agohttp://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/01/31/despite-criticism-from-left-and-right-msnbc-silence-is-deafening-about-doctored/
You libs must be sooooooooooo proud of one of your many networks…. Thet do not even have the ethics to admit what thet did Typical lib…..
Jim Hennahane
4 months, 2 weeks agoAs usual, you have either missed the point or intentionally are trying to avoid the issue. The media is the point. If you expect to have a civil and open conversation about the issues you cant misrepresent like they did. The article should have been totally about that. Not your opinion on guns or gun laws.
JR Beillenhouser
4 months, 2 weeks agoTranscript:
“I ask if there’s anybody in this room that can give me one reason or challenge this question: Why anybody in this room needs to have one of these assault-style weapons or military weapons or high-capacity clips.”
(he looks around the silent room waiting for an answer)
“Not one person can answer that question”
“The Second Amendment shall not be infringed!”
Phil is so blinded by ideology that he can’t even see the truth. Pretty sad.
Matt Henry
4 months, 2 weeks agoJR - Don’t be fooled. He sees the truth. But here’s where the difference lies….
A core principle behind liberalism is an intellectual elitism that is so deeply ingrained that not only are they sure that they are right, they are insulted whenever that “rightness” is challenged. Their motives are much more important than their results; you can prove to a liberal 18 different ways that a program or policy is harmful to the people that it is meant to help but they don’t care because it’s their kind hearts that matter. And to challenge this caring and righteousness is an insult to truth and justice.
The point; code pink could camp out in that gallery and scream at the top of their lungs all the time about whatever d-bag stuff they scream about and Phil would defend them to his dying breath because, after all, they are RIGHT. One sentence from the gallery after a challenge to anyone in the room, a long pause, and another statement that said (basically) that nobody could disagree is seen as heckling because that person is WRONG. Notice how in Phil’s first sentence he went straight to his thoughts on what other people need? This was heckling because the “heckler” was wrong in his views, not because he should or should not have been saying it.
The person in the gallery is not bad (in Phil and every other Progressive’s mind) for “heckling.” He was bad for challenging the father’s fundamental “rightness,” a slap in the face to all who are fundamentally “right.” That’s why OWS could destroy everything they touch, have to have rape-safe zones, crap on cop cars, overwhelmingly rich and white and still be morally superior to those law-abiding, pick-up-their-trash, racist redneck tea partiers.
Blind? No way.
Phil Cardarella
4 months, 2 weeks agoOK, still waiting for the answer to the poor dad’s question: Why do you need to be able to fire 80 rounds per minute? Not “‘Because I want too!” Not “Because I think the Second Amendment lets me!”
Why do you need to? What purpose do these items serve that cannot be met by less deadly alternatives? Is that purpose sufficient to justify the carnage they wreak?
Hence my difficulty with complaints that this was misrepresented as “heckling” when the man had asked a question. It was NOT an answer to his question. It was not an attempt to answer his question. It was an interruption to express a contrary opinion — often called heckling. It is the apparent inability of anyone to offer a coherent answer to that “need” question that makes this debate so difficult.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 2 weeks agohave u seen the clip phillie???? f you had and you are honest, you can have no other conclusion but msnbc doctored the clop….
Matt Henry
4 months, 2 weeks agoCould he have more elegantly proven my point?
J.r. Reynolds
4 months agoI have to straighten a few things out. First, the Sandy Hook father DID NOT LOOK AROUND THE ROOM. Watch the tape more closely and you see on the wide shot that he is surrounded by the panel, when he is looking to his left, he is looking at the person leading the testimony, NOT the crowd, He can’t see the crowd, which is well behind him. Second, he DID NOT “ASK a question”, he made rhetorical comments, “I would like to ask” precedes his semi-question. The definition of heckling is “interrupting a speaker to annoy, disrupt opr dispute the speaker. The chairman immediate;ly admonished the people for speaking up, because they were NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK. Any other interpretation of these events is due to not paying attention, I have watched it hundreds of time, in very clear detail. By ANY definition of heckling, that IS WHAT occurred. This is just more right-wing mis-direction. The editing at msnbc shows exactly what happened. The smarmy commentators above are are not paying attention, and failing to be honest about all of the facts of this incident. There were several [people who hollered out, one of them said “the second amendment shall not be abridged” which is NOT EVEN AN ANSWER to the “question” and makes no sense anyway. The rhetorical ‘question ‘ was “why does anyone need a large capacity magazine or automatic weapon”. The Hecklers were doing just that “heckling” a public speaker by interrupting him in order to annoy or disrupt him.