It has become increasingly and infuriatingly obvious that the practice of selective editing in media has emerged as a profound threat to public discourse. More and more, so-called journalists are deliberately omitting or altering key details, thereby distorting narratives, manipulating public perception, and undermining trust in our institutions. Selective editing not only misleads audiences but also perpetuates bias and erodes accountability. One wonders when we have last seen a legacy journalist report an issue objectively.
I came across three stories in the last two days which typify this. In the first, HUD Secretary Scott Turner ably fended off a reporter’s dishonest accusation by simply stating the full facts of the case. The second concerned CBS’s dishonest editing of an interview with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, while the third involved Dr. Sebastian Gorka's real-time correction of a CNN host's use of deceptive data.
During the reporter's exchange with Secretary Turner, he discussed a proposed two-year time limit on Section 8 housing assistance in President Trump's 2026 budget. President Trump's plan is similar to Bill Clinton's welfare reforms. The reporter’s long-winded question framed the policy as risking evictions for poor families, implying a heartless push toward homelessness. Turner schooled the reporter, saying, “Government subsidies were never meant to be a hammock, they're meant to be a trampoline." He mentioned how the proposal targets able-bodied individuals, not seniors or the disabled, and aims to provide workforce training to help individuals become independent. "Poverty has no party," Turner asserted, emphasizing the nonpartisan goal of breaking dependency cycles. He went on to mention the tragedy of generational poverty, where entire families become trapped in the cycle for decades.
The reporter was engaging in so-called "gotcha" journalism. In logic, this is known as a "complex question," where the answer presupposes a prior answer to a prior question. The classic example is, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" This deceptive editing in the framing of a question can demonize people and policies, deterring solutions.
The second example unfolded on CBS's "Face the Nation," where Secretary Kristi Noem discussed efforts to deport illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Noem emphasized the administration's resolve, stating, "And the one thing that we will continue to do is to make sure he doesn't walk free in the United States of America." However, CBS deceptively edited out crucial context from her full response, which detailed Garcia's alleged crimes: "This individual was a known human smuggler, MS-13 gang member, an individual who was a wife beater, and someone who was so perverted that he solicited nude photos from minors. Even fellow traffickers reportedly urged him to stop due to his treatment of children." CBS deleted this information, thereby obscuring the rationale behind Garcia's deportation, and potentially portraying the administration's actions as arbitrary or unnecessarily severe. Noem corrected the network on X, posted the unedited clip and accused them of a cover-up. Some justified this selective omission as being necessary due to time constraints, but the situation exemplifies how selective editing can sanitize criminality and fuel leftist agendas, the result being that viewers are left with a skewed view of immigration policy and national security threats.
CNN host Brianna Keilar employed this deceptive selection of data during an interview on "State of the Union" with counterterrorism expert Dr. Sebastian Gorka. The discussion centered on the tragic shooting at Annunciation Church and Catholic School in Minneapolis, where transgender shooter Robert Westman killed two children and injured others during a school liturgy, with "kill Donald Trump" scrawled on a firearm magazine. Keilar downplayed the ideological motivations tied to the shooter's transgender identity by citing U.S. Secret Service data: 96% of mass attackers from 2016-2020 were non-transgender men. Gorka swiftly rebutted, noting the data's inclusion of non-ideological gang violence, which inflated the sample and diluted patterns of targeted attacks on Christians.
When Keilar pivoted to CNN's own tally -- claiming only three of 32 school shootings since 2020 involved transgender perpetrators -- Gorka dismissed it as "pseudo-facts," referencing seven such incidents in recent years alone and CNN's history of distortions like the "Russia hoax."
Keilar's cherry-picking of statistics is another example of deception that minimizes rising patterns of ideologically-driven violence. This practice dismisses victims' realities while shielding a preferred narrative. Selective data framing can normalize threats, erode discussions on cultural conflicts, and prioritize network bias over factual integrity.
There are many dangers posed by selective editing. It distorts facts, amplifies biases, and deprives the public of opportunities for informed debate. Turner's interview exposed policy mischaracterizations, Noem's case omitted crimes and hid threats while Keilar's data distorted patterns of violence.
Ultimately, this malpractice damages media credibility, polarizes society, and jeopardizes truth itself. As consumers, we must demand transparency -- full contexts and unedited footage -- in order to safeguard democracy from these manipulations.
Image: AT via Magic Studio