Neil Heslin, holding a picture of himself with his son Jesse, testifies at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Conn., Monday, Jan. 28, 2013. Neil Heslin, whose 6-year-old son Jesse Lewis was one of the 20 first-graders killed in the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre. (AP)
MSNBC is reportedly "reviewing" the situation after it aired a selectively-edited video that appeared to show the father of a Newtown, Conn. shooting victim being heckled during a legislative hearing -- even after replacing the clip in a story on its website.
MSNBC host Martin Bashir aired the edited video on his show Monday with an audience member shouting, "the Second Amendment shall not be infringed!" during the testimony of Neil Heslin, father of Sandy Hook first-grade victim Jesse Lewis, at a Connecticut hearing.
Omitted from the video was Heslin asking, "why anybody in this room needs to have one of these assault-style weapons or military weapons or high-capacity clips." He added after a pause, "Not one person can answer the question," at which point the audience reacted.
On Tuesday, conservative Twitter curation site Twitchy posted the full video showing Heslin's remarks and the audience member's response. Following that, a number of news outlets that posted the initial "heckling," including TheBlaze, corrected their stories.
MSNBC didn't exactly follow suit, instead updating the story on Bashir's show page Tuesday with a fuller video and an editor's note stating that it had "been amended from the original version to clarify the context of the remarks" -- but not specifying what the problem had been (and not altering the page's URL, "emotional-father-of-sandy-hook-victim-heckled-by-gun-nuts"):
But despite replacing the video in its post, Bashir's original segment -- with the edited footage -- was still available online Wednesday afternoon through MSNBC's media player:
MSNBC spokeswoman Lauren Skowronski did not immediately return a request for comment from TheBlaze about whether the network intends to retract or correct the video on-air. An MSNBC "source" told the Washington Post, "We’re reviewing the video in question."
