Virginia Citizens Defense League v. Couric

In 2016, Stephanie Soechtig and Katie Couric (collectively, the filmmakers) (defendants) released a documentary called Under the Gun. The film, which advocated for more stringent gun regulation in America, included footage of Couric interviewing members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) (plaintiff), a nonprofit gun-rights organization. At the end of the three-minute interview segment, Couric asked the members: “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” Couric’s question was followed by several seconds of silence during which the VCDL members shifted nervously in their seats, appearing to avoid eye contact. The film then cut to video of a revolver chamber closing, with narration from Couric about the broad popularity of background-check requirements. Although most of the segment accurately depicted the interview, including members’ responses to Couric’s questions about background checks, unedited footage showed that the question at the end of the interview prompted not silence but a total of nine minutes of responses and further discussion between Couric and the panel of VCDL members. In the final version of the film, however, the filmmakers cut that discussion and spliced in b-roll footage taken before the interview, when Couric had asked the members to sit in silence while technicians calibrated their recording equipment. After the documentary was shown at several film festivals, the VCDL released unedited audio of the interview, prompting a public backlash that led Couric to release a statement acknowledging that the segment was misleading. The VCDL then sued the filmmakers for defamation, arguing that the 12-second clip of edited b-roll footage falsely portrayed the members as ridiculous because it suggested they were uninformed in their areas of expertise. The district court dismissed the complaint, and the VCDL appealed.