Media Research Center Director of Research and NewsBusters Senior Editor Rich Noyes appeared on Fox News's "America's Election HQ" program shortly before 6 p.m. EDT today. The topic: The Bush White House's complaint about NBC's misleading editing of President Bush's interview with correspondent Richard Engel.
You can find an excerpt of the transcript below the page break, or the full segment by clicking the play button on the embed at the right. [audio available here]
For more of NB's archive on Engel's reporting, click here.
MEGYN KELLY, co-host: Who's right in this? NBC News says, that's the TV game, we have to edit, sorry.
RICH NOYES: They don't really have to edit that much. This was a 15-minute interview only about three minutes of it aired on NBC's "Today" show. Today is a 4-hour-long program.... Time really was not a factor in this. But the president was making his point and you didn't see it in that clip because it was left on the cutting room floor, that his point when he talked to the Israeli parliament was that what Europe faced in the 1930s was a villain like Hitler who was stating his desire to do all these wicked things, and the civilized world flinched from the challenge.... He never said that negotiating with Iran was pointless. He never said negotiating with Iran was appeasement, he said negotiations can only happen after they abandon their enrichment program.
KELLY: Not just that. He actually corrected the reporter on his misstatement. And the reporter edited that out.
NOYES: Yeah, NBC viewers could not get any of that context. And NBC's initial reaction was to tell them to go to the Web site if they wanted it. As if the job of NBC is simply to put things on their Web site and edit it down in a very tendentious way for its newscasts.
[...]
NOYES: This is the President of the United States. He doesn't show up for an interview every day on the "Today" show. I think they should have given him a lot more time. You know, it certainly was a worthwhile topic and a worthwhile issue.
