Katie Couric and Under the Gun director Stephanie Soechtig are facing a $12 million defamation lawsuit for their roles in allegedly “misleading” edits that were made in their 2016 documentary.
In the film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Couric asks members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) how they would propose keeping guns out of the hands of felons or terrorists without first doing background checks.
The problem is each answer is preceded by nearly 10 seconds of silence. It’s that silence that has the League upset. They allege the footage portrays members Daniel Hawes and Patricia Webb inaccurately.
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“The manipulated footage falsely informed viewers that the VCDL members had been stumped and had no basis for their position on background checks,” states the complaint filed in Virginia federal court. The pair, allegedly, were well-equipped to answer Couric’s question.
“We want to set the record straight and hold them accountable for what they’ve done,” VCDL president Philip Van Cleave said in a statement, via CNN.
Hawes and Webb want compensatory damages of $12 million and they also want an injunction against further airing of Under the Gun until “false” depictions of them are removed.
The famed anchor has not commented on the suit recently, but in a “Message from Katie” on the film’s website (posted in May, well before the launch of the suit), Couric takes the blame. “I take responsibility for a decision that misrepresented an exchange I had with members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL),” she wrote.
“When I screened an early version of the film with the director, Stephanie Soechtig, I questioned her and the editor about the pause and was told that a ‘beat’ was added for, as she described it, ‘dramatic effect,’ to give the audience a moment to consider the question,” Couric continued. “When VCDL members recently pointed out that they had in fact immediately answered this question, I went back and reviewed it and agree that those eight seconds do not accurately represent their response.”
Couric added: “I regret that those eight seconds were misleading and that I did not raise my initial concerns more vigorously.”
Soechtig also responded to the controversy back in May.
“There are a wide range of views expressed in the film,”Soechtig said in a statement at the time. “My intention was to provide a pause for the viewer to have a moment to consider this important question before presenting the facts on Americans’ opinions on background checks. I never intended to make anyone look bad and I apologize if anyone felt that way.”
Couric added that she supported Soechtig’s statement and said she was “very proud of the film.”
With files from ET Canada