[June 2, 2016] It is much less destructive on a leader’s trustworthiness to learn from the mistakes of others than to make a big mistake and try to justify it. That is what we can learn from the media and Katie Couric, American Journalist, who recently produced a “documentary” on gun violence. While the topic is not relevant to the lesson we are taught, its connection to the U.S. Constitution and federal law is pertinent because of the importance of the topic.
The content of the documentary, called Under the Gun, is something that I’ve not seen but specific, substantial charges of intentional bias and misleading editing by many critics is important to note.1 Katie Couric has apologized for her role in approving of the deliberate error of adding 8 silent seconds to a question making it appear the pro-gun people she interviewed had trouble answering. She apologized but only after being caught and exposed. There are some lessons we can learn from this incident. See a more detailed explanation of the distorted editing, link here.
- Leadership means telling the truth and not distorting the facts. Any leader who does so will certainly lose the trust and confidence of others they rely upon in their profession. If egregious enough, a leader could be fired, demoted, or transferred away for a mistake as big as the one Couric was involved. Certainly, she acted unethically and was slow to apologize and has not made the editing correction as of this date.
- Leadership means quickly admitting a mistake (when discovered), correcting it, learning from it, and moving on. Couric failed to meet this test of a leader. She only admitted the error after it was made public (long after she discovered it) and she didn’t correct the documentary. Whether she learned a lesson or not is questionable given her recent statements. Taking responsibility for the deceptive editing is a good first step but it appears disingenuous when mixed with a poor excuse.
- Leadership is not done in a vacuum. The deceptiveness of the documentary should be seen in the context of recent criticisms by Couric of Donald Trump, a U.S. presidential candidate who supports gun rights. It is clear that she thinks the media should have been tougher on Trump but she resorts to dishonest work as a way of making her political enemies look bad. For her it seems that manufactured flubs of a presidential candidate is the only means of accomplishing this. She let her political ideology cloud her judgment. Others will now jump on the argument that all media journalists are deceitful like Couric.
- When you are in charge, you are in charge. The film’s director Stephanie Soechtig said the editing was done to add “dramatic effect,” to give the audience a moment to consider the question asked. Couric agreed with the editing but obviously not to give dramatic effect but as an attempt to show that pro-gun people had no answers. Initially after being told of the editing, Couric said she was proud of it and supported Soechtig. Couric should have immediately told Soechtig to correct the misleading edit and not attempt to justify it.
- When you apologize for a mistake, own it and make the apology sincere. I’ll emphasize this because by doing so you will appear more down-to-earth and human. People appreciate it. Any attempt to place the blame on others, as Couric tried to do with Soechtig, is distasteful and can be immediately seen for what it is. It’s something a 7-year old might do and is not expected from an adult.
Being a leader is tough. Katie Couric is a leader regardless of her mistakes and dishonesty. We all can learn some lessons from her unfortunate lapses in judgment. My company commander told me once when I was fresh out of Infantry school that, “You can do 100 things perfectly right but all it takes is one aw-shit to destroy it all.” In the case of Couric’s 2-hour gun documentary, all it took was 8 seconds.
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