MSNBC deliberately edits Sandy Hook testimony to rewrite false history and smear gun owners

Wednesday, February 13, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: MSNBC, Sandy Hook testimony, selective editing

(NaturalNews) The only people who watch the agenda-driven mainstream media these days are those who want to be duped. It sure isn't because such outlets are truly unbiased purveyors of truth.

Take MSNBC, for example, which recently doctored footage of public testimony in Hartford, Conn., provided by a father whose child was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, to push the network's vehement anti-Second Amendment agenda.

On his program, Martin Bashir claimed that gun rights supporters heckled Neil Heslin, the father of Jesse Lewis, during an emotional plea he made asking why anyone would need an "assault-style weapon" like the one used to kill his son.

Heslin, who was visibly shaken when talking about the physical damage done to his son when shot by psychotropic, drug-crazed Adam Lanza, 20, spoke for about 15 minutes, but his testimony was selectively edited to deliberately portray gun rights supporters as inconsiderate louts by showing about six seconds where these "hecklers" said things like, "the Second Amendment shall not be infringed."

Using victims to attack gun rights advocates

What the network conveniently - and no doubt purposely - chose not to show the audience was that Heslin, who says he favors a ban on military look-alike weapons and magazines of more than 10 rounds, asked the audience directly, "I ask if there's anyone in this room who can give me one reason, or challenge this question: Why anybody in this room needs to have an - one of these assault-style weapons or military weapons or high capacity clips?"

Some in the audience were merely answering Heslin after he followed up on silence by stating, "Not one person can answer that question."

Other MSNBC hosts, including Lawrence O'Donnell, as well as some blogs, advanced the "heckling" hoax as something other than a legitimate response to a direct question.

What the loathsome network also did not show was Heslin acknowledging the response from those few in the audience, adding, "I respect their opinion, but I wish they'd respect mine and give it a little bit of thought."

This is not the first time NBC has shamed itself with politically motivated and selective editing.

Similar tainting has been seen in the portrayal of the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida, for which George Zimmerman has been charged with second degree murder but which he claims was self-defense.

Zimmerman has filed suit against NBC Universal for the network's role in editing a 9-1-1 call of the incident, which he says was done to "portray him as a racist."

Pattern of deceitful behavior

"NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain... Because of NBC's deceptive and exploitative manipulations, the public wrongly believes that Zimmerman 'use(d) a racial epithet' while describing Martin during the call to the dispatcher on that fateful night," says the suit.

"There is now a clear pattern of deception at NBC News. It is the most egregious violation of journalistic ethics. First they edited the Trayvon Martin 911 call to fabricate a racist motive. Then Andrea Mitchell tried to invent a fake 'supermarket scanner moment' for Mitt Romney. Now MSNBC is deceptively editing footage of Sandy Hook testimony in order to smear gun rights advocates," says Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a media watchdog group.

"This is not how a legitimate, professional news organization operates. MSNBC's relentless anti-gun advocacy is bad enough, but this is downright dishonest," he added. "Time and time again NBC News has demonstrated why the American people can't trust a single thing they say."

Like other family members of the Sandy Hook victims, Neil Heslin is being used by a politically motivated media to portray him as a victim of those who dare to support one of the Constitution's most fundamental amendments.

Sources:

http://www.infowars.com

http://www.mrc.org

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50634545#.URVHPvK55OJ

http://mrctv.org