NPR Controversy Fueled by Dishonest Editing

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Where there’s a conservative video sting allegedly capturing a liberal target saying something controversial, there’s highly manipulative editing. As Mark Sumner on the Daily Kos puts it, “The ACORN video was a fake. The Shirley Sherrod video was a fake. So why should anyone be surprised to find that the NPR video is also a fake?”

NPR’s David Folkenflik compared the 11½ minute hit piece that forced his network’s president to resign to a two-hour version described by the self-proclaimed muckrakers who released it as “largely the raw video and audio.”

Folkenflik also spoke with several analysts, conservatives among them, who had seen the footage and found the editing troubling.

NPR via DailyKos:

“I tell my children there are two ways to lie,” Tompkins said. “One is to tell me something that didn’t happen, and the other is not to tell me something that did happen. I think they employed both techniques in this.”

Sacramento, Calif.-based digital forensic consultant Mark Menz also reviewed both tapes at my request. He has done extensive video analyses for federal agencies and corporations.

“From my personal opinion, the short one is definitely edited in a form and fashion to lead you to a certain conclusion — you might say it’s looking only at the dirty laundry,” Menz said. He drew a distinction between that and a compressed news story.

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So why were the NPR executives so quick to resign? — PZS