Katie Couric defended her decision to selectively edit an interview with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in an appearance on the Today show Tuesday, noting that the media make editorial decisions on how to present a subject “all the time.”
Couric admitted, in her new book, that she selectively edited a 2016 interview with Ginsburg because, in it, Ginsburg was critical of football players like Colin Kaepernick who, at the time, were “taking a knee” in protest of racism and police brutality. Ginsburg did not approve of the protests and suggested that they showed a lack of appreciation for all America has to offer.
The gesture, Ginsburg said, showed “contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.”
“According to Couric, she ‘wanted to protect’ Ginsburg and felt that the issue of racial justice was a ‘blind spot’ for her,” The Daily Mail noted in their report.
More likely, Couric was looking to protect Ginsburg from any potential fallout from leftist allies who were unlikely to share Ginsburg’s view of the Kaepernick-led protests.
“Couric felt that when Ginsburg said that people like Kaepernick were ‘dumb and disrespectful’ they were comments that were ‘unworthy of a crusader for equality’ like the liberal Supreme Court justice,” the outlet noted. “The day after the sit-down, the head of public affairs for the Supreme Court emailed Couric to say the late justice had ‘misspoken’ and asked that it be removed from the story. Couric writes that she was ‘conflicted’ because she was a ‘big RBG fan’, referring to Ginsburg’s moniker.”
Ultimately, Couric says she contacted fellow journalist David Brooks, who suggested that Ginsburg “probably didn’t understand the question.” She later edited down the interview to include some comments about Kaepernick and his fellow protesters but left out the comments Couric felt were “unworthy” of Ginsburg’s status.
In an interview with Today, host Savannah Guthrie pressed Couric on editing the interview, suggesting that Couric’s decision violated ethical standards.
“Ultimately, I think I should’ve included it, but I also think it’s really important to look at what I did include,” Couric said of the interview.
“How did you justify that? It violates a cardinal rule of journalism to do that,” Guthrie noted.
“Well, I think what people don’t realize is we make editorial decisions like that all the time,” Couric shot back.
“And I chose to talk about this and put it in the book for a discussion. I mention that it was a conundrum, that I asked Justice Ginsburg about Colin Kaepernick and taking the knee and how she felt about that,” she added. “And I did include the fact that she said it was dumb and disrespectful, it was stupid and arrogant, and quite a bit of what she said.”
She did not, however, include Ginsburg’s comments defending the national anthem, which change the character of Ginsburg’s earlier, more muted commentary.
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Source: Dailywire
