And today, she and the mere
bloggers at Twitchy have proven to be better journalists than people who
traditionally wear that hat.
See, yesterday the
pro-gun-control crowd lit up with the story of a grieving father who was
“heckled” by pro-gun activists during testimony in the Connecticut General Assembly. It starts with Neil Heslin,
a man who any human being should feel compassion for. His son, Jesse Lewis, was six when was
murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre. I don’t
think most ordinary people can even imagine the inconsolable grief he must
feel, even more than a month later. I
disagree with him on what the appropriate response is to this massacre, but I
have nothing but compassion for his loss.
Indeed let’s show him due
respect, by sharing a picture of his son and quoting extensively from the WSJ
portrait of him (right):
When Barbara
McSperrin, of Beacon Falls, Conn., heard news of the shooting on Friday, she
sent a text to her friend Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son, Jesse, attended
Sandy Hook Elementary School.
The response came
later in the day. The text message from Ms. Lewis said only: "Jesse's
gone."
Boisterous and
imaginative, Jesse was raised in the village of Sandy Hook with his brother,
J.T. Family friends say he played with the family's collection of animals: five
horses; a mini-horse; a mini-donkey; three dogs; and chickens. Recently, he was
learning to ride horseback, the friends said.
"Jesse was such
an incredible light," his mother, Scarlett Lewis, said in a email on
Sunday. "So bright and full of love. He lived life with vigor and
passion...brave and true."
Jesse liked to think
up far-fetched scenarios, asking "What if..." before spinning a
hypothetical tale, a family friend said.
A woman who helps
look after the family's horses said Jesse and her 8-year-old son used to play
in the hayloft and dream up pranks. The last time the boys were together, they
had the idea of barricading the door to the barn with bricks.
"He was a force
who lit up a room when he entered," Ms. Lewis said. "Compassionate
and caring," Jesse was, she said, "wise and soulful beyond his
years."
He and his parents
were regulars at Newtown's Misty Vale Deli, according to a manager there, Angel
Salazar.
On Friday morning,
Jesse had ordered his favorite breakfast sandwich—sausage, egg, and cheese—and
a hot chocolate, Mr. Salazar said.
He expected to see
Jesse again on Saturday morning, when he usually comes in with his mother and a
friend. This Saturday, only the friend came, and she delivered the news.
"They told me
he ran into the hall to help," Ms. Lewis said. "I can only hope this
meant he had less fear and went quickly in his bravery. … It is unbelievable to
us that Jesse is now in heaven with Jesus."
Indeed all of the children who
died there are profiled here, so you should consider reading
the whole thing. Don’t let the
political chattering distract you too much from the simple act of
mourning. It is normal for Second
Amendment advocates to be disgusted and resentful when we see the ghouls in the
gun control movement jump up and down with glee at the latest shooting. But we can’t let that resentment cloud our
normal respect for the very real and very human grief of the families of those
who died at Newtown. I am not saying you
have to do, politically, whatever they want, just show some respect.
And supposedly that respect was
breached at meeting of Connecticut’s General Assembly. Soon word spread around that a grieving
father was heckled at this meaning. “OMG
do these gun nuts have no heart?” or so many on the left cried out.
Except, it wasn’t true. The real journalists at Twitchy went and found
the original video of this event and proved no heckling occurred.
You can skip ahead to the 15 minute mark and watch the exchange pretty
soon thereafter, but let me respectfully suggest you don’t do that, because
there is much more worth watching in that video than just the exchange.
There are several things I get
out of watching the whole thing. First,
there is an ordinary sense of human compassion.
You can see that even a month later he is just heartbroken. And whether you wish to enact his policy
proposals or not, we should have every bit of compassion for that and yes let
him have his say. No question.
And the second thing you get is
that the people there all got that. This man several times addresses the audience
directly, saying they don’t need assault rifles and similar sentiments. And through all of it they maintain their
respectful silence. Then finally he
says:
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.
And you see him at that point
look at the audience. And even then everyone is just quiet. Then he says: “Not one person can answer that
question.”
In other words, at that point, he
used their silence against them. And only then did they speak up. So they sat patiently being asked by him over
and over again to respond, and it was only when he triumphantly declared that
their silence meant they had no response, that they decided to respond. And really you have to have a special breed
of chutzpah to say, “see? No one can
answer me!” and then complain if they answer you. And to Mr. Heslin’s credit, he doesn’t seem to have that kind of
shamelessness in him. If you watch
him closely he doesn’t seem offended that they spoke up. He starts to say, “allright” and my sense of
it, was he was literally about to debate with them before a public official
told the audience not to respond or they would be cleared out. Then the very next words out of Heslen’s
mouth is to say everyone has a right to their opinion and that he respects
those who disagree with him, a perfectly gracious response.
So Mr. Heslin didn’t have that
kind of chutzpah, but pretty much all of the usual candidates in the media did. The worst offender is MSNBC which headlined
the article: “Emotional father of Sandy Hook victim heckled by gun nuts.” That is right, not “gun rights supporters,”
but “gun nuts.” This is what passes for objective journalism
over there?
But the most egregious element is how MSNBC
deceptively edited the video to bolster their point:
Yes, God forbid you embed the
entire exchange so that people might see here is literally asking for a response and holding their silence against
them. Nor
is this the first time that MSBNC or its affiliates have selectively edited
video and audio or the purpose of deception. And when you do this, you are telling the
world that you are not just getting a story wrong. You are silently confessing that you know it
is wrong, and you are knowingly lying about it.
The same can be said for the
Telegraph which is usually better than this.
This is the video they embedded:
Their accompanying article
is more subdued than MSNBC (no references to “gun nuts” in that one) but this
line is precious:
However the tearful
father's testimony was interrupted by up to a dozen members of the audience
shouting "Second Amendment!", in reference to the clause in the US
Constitution that the pro-gun lobby argues enshrines the right to carry arms.
Besides the basic sin of omitting
all of the mitigating context so that interrupting him seemed downright
reasonable, I particularly enjoyed how they characterized the Second Amendment
as where “the pro-gun lobby argues enshrines the right to carry arms.” Well, Telegraph, the Supreme Court agrees, but
really, why don’t you quote it to your readers and let them see what they
think?
Meanwhile, to Slate’s credit,
while the original article seemed to buy into this lie with the title “Father
of Newtown Victim Heckled By Gun Rights Supporters” (again, not “gun nuts”),
the present article is radically different.
Now the headline reads “Was
the Sandy Hook Dad Really “Heckled”? The Video Suggests Otherwise.” And rather than pretend they never made the
error in the first place, they run the original misleading piece and then
this update correcting the record:
Update: We now have video of Neil Heslin's testimony to Connecticut
lawmakers yesterday—during which he was reportedly "heckled" by
gun-rights advocates—and the footage suggests that the initial characterization
of the incident was more than a little misleading.
At around the
15-minute mark in the video below you'll hear an untold number of gun-rights
supporters shout out a variety of Second Amendment-related remarks, just as the
the Connecticut Post originally reported occurred in a story headlined
"Father of Newtown victim heckled at hearing." But the video also
shows that those who interjected were responding to a question posed by Heslin.
"Is there
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?" Heslin said before pausing and
looking around the room. He then continued: "And not one person can answer
that question or give me an answer." It was at that point that the the
cries of "Second Amendment" can be heard.
Now it's worth
pointing out that the audience members aren't supposed to interrupt a witness—a
lawmaker running the hearing can be heard asking for the crowd to be quiet—and
it's possible that Heslin's question was a rhetorical one, and his pause was
simply for dramatic effect. But regardless, it's fairly clear that those
gun-rights advocates who spoke up were doing so in response to what they heard
as a question. Even if such actions represent an interruption they nonetheless
appear to fall well short of heckling, an act that most often comes with an air
of harassment associated with it.
If the exchange
between Heslin and the pro-gun audience members was noteworthy at all, it's
likely because of how relatively civil the whole thing was. The gun-rights
advocates quickly quiet down after their short responses; Heslin appears
largely unfazed by the shouts.
"We're all
entitled to our own opinion and I respect their opinions and their
thoughts," Heslin continued after the incident. "I wish they'd
respect mine and give it a little bit of thought, and realize it could have
been their child that could have been in that school that day."
Here's the video to
judge for yourself. Further down below is my original post, for posterity's
sake. Based on the original report, the post originally ran under a pair of
headlines: "Father of Newtown Victim Interrupted by Shouts of 'Second
Amendment!'" and "Father of Newtown Victim Heckled by Gun-Rights
Supporters".a
As constructive criticism, I don’t
think that Mr. Heslin’s question can be read as rhetorical when he holds their
silence against them, but that is a nitpick.
He very accurate describes what happened and then applies his
analysis. His audience is more than
sufficiently equipped to disagree with him if they are inclined. So kudos to Josh Voorhees for openly
admitting his error and correcting the record. [I should probably insert lame Friday the 13th joke here.]
Meanwhile NPR takes the weenie “decide
for yourself approach.” And refers to
this report:
The report is reasonably good,
especially since it didn’t seem geared toward answering the “was he heckled or
not” question. But I find it interesting
in that we had the family of a Sandy Hook victim who says an additional law is
not useful.
At the Daily Beast David
Frum just buys the story hook, line and sinker.
The father of one of
the victims of the Newtown school shootings was heckled during a series of gun
control hearings in Hartford, Conn. on Monday.
The hearings, which
lasted several hours, brought out around 1500 people to the Capitol, including
a number of NRA supporters as well as proponents on harsher gun control
measures.
But the Connecticut
Post reports that the crowds, mostly dominated by gun owners, got somewhat out
of hand:
She makes it sound like an unruly
mob, which you know by now is bull.
But I
saved what, in some ways, is the most egregious example for last: the Connecticut Post article that seems to
have started it all. When I started reading
this when researching this post, I noticed something immediately. Although the headline reads “Father of
Newtown victim heckled at hearing” the article itself... didn’t seem very
concerned with that aspect. I mean here
is the lede, for instance:
HARTFORD -- Some
came dressed in camouflage and others in suits.
Some wore
National Rifle Association hats, casual clothing or bright power ties and sat
next to each other, but on starkly different sides of the raging national
argument on gun control.
And it just goes on, talking
about everything and overyone but Mr. Heslin until the twenty third paragraph.
That is highly unusual in a newspaper for an incident that earned the
headline. And the discussion of the non-Heckling
incident was not nearly as breathless as all of the other descriptions:
"The Second
Amendment!" was shouted a couple of times by as many as a dozen gun
enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his slain
6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are
allowed to be sold in the state.
"There are a
lot of things that should be changed to prevent what happened," said
Heslin, who said he grew up using guns and was undisturbed by the interruption
of his testimony.
"That wasn't
just a killing, it was a massacre," said Heslin, who recalled dropping off
his son at Sandy Hook Elementary school shortly before Lanza opened fire.
"I just hope some good can come out of this."
I mean that description doesn’t
even sound like more than responding to a question, which it was. It certainly doesn’t match the “heckling”
description in the title itself. By then
my internet google monkeying “spider sense” immediately went off. I started to wonder: was the original
headline altered in some way? What did
it originally say? A huge clue is in the
web address of the article: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Newtown-dad-to-lawmakers-Change-gun-laws-4228992.php#photo-4098381 Normally I make my links nice and neat, but I
want you to read where this is going to because very often web publishing
programs make the address automatically match the title. So for instance, my post on my SWATting
incident, “What Happened Tonight” is given the address http://allergic2bull.blogspot.com/2012/06/what-happened-tonight.html.
I didn’t command Blogger to make the address that way. It did that on its own.
So I looked in Google’s handy
cache feature, and the cache feature had the article being pretty much the
same. But it clearly indicated it had
been updated today, the day after (this happened yesterday, after all). So we were still not seeing the original. And then I noticed something else. I google searched for the phrase Newtown
Dad to Lawmakers Change Gun Laws. I
got this:
What
this is, is what happens when you float your mouse cursor over the “>>”
symbol next to a news story. Google then
shows you a picture of the story as it existed at a previous point in
time. It is hard to read (and you
probably want to enlarge it by opening it up in a new window) but you can see
that the story was radically different in the original draft. It more prominently featured Mr. Heslin’s
story but in the part shown in the picture I can’t see any mention of the gun
rights advocates saying anything, let alone heckling or anything else. Of course it might be the case that it was
mentioned in the part that is not
pictured. So the article was radically altered with a new, misleading
headline added.
Now,
to their credit, they have also created a second version of the article, with
a different internet address, and if you go to http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Father-of-Newtown-victim-heckled-at-hearing-4228992.php?cmpid=twitter,
you will see what appears to be an exact copy of the article, but notice now
the address reflects the new headline.
In addition to that, they added video from CBS news (which I won't embed because it auto-starts) that shows most of the exchange but the article still mischaracterizes it as “heckling.”
Oh and for bonus points, CBS News
also published a
similarly misleading account. But
let’s not forget how the CT Post, which presents the article as though its
reporter saw the exchange live, added to the deception, instead of clearing it
up.
Mmm, come to think of it, many of the writers here have twitter addresses.
The Connecticut Post’s Ken Dixon posts as @KenDixonCT. And at MSNBC, where they called gun rights
supporters “gun nuts,” that article was written by Jane C. Timm, who tweets at
@janestreet. So maybe I should show them
a little heckling of my own...
Oh, and what media bias?
---------------------------------------
My wife and I have lost our jobs
due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an
attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up
to ten years. I know that claim sounds
fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these
claims using documentary and video evidence.
If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin
accountable, please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right. And thank you.
Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing,
mostly for snark and site updates. And
you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent
History here.
And you can read a little more about my novel, here.
---------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
I have accused some people,
particularly Brett Kimberlin, of
reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even
criminal. In all cases, the only justice I want is through the
appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system. I do not want to see vigilante violence
against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally
wrong, but it is counter-productive.
In the particular case of Brett
Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed
communication. I say this in part
because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want
that to happen to him.
And for that matter, don’t go on
his property. Don’t sneak around and try
to photograph him. Frankly try not to
even be within his field of vision. Your
behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to
mention trespass and other concerns).
And do not contact his organizations,
either. And most of all, leave his family alone.
The only exception to all that is
that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with
contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might
report. And even then if he tells you to
stop contacting him, obey that request. That
this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that
a person asks you to stop and you refuse.
And let me say something
else. In my heart of hearts, I don’t
believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you
haven’t don’t start.
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