Chuck Todd apologized to liberals across the nation for airing a segment of “convicted murderers expressing regret for committing gun violence, all of whom were black,” during Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press.”
Todd posted the following explanation to the “Meet the Press” website detailing how the decision to air the piece was made prior to last Wednesday’s horrific shooting in Charleston and how the production team deemed it “too important to put off for another week.”
We’ve gotten a lot of feedback about the gun video we showed on Meet the Press today. Some were upset it only featured African-American men talking about their regrets of pulling a trigger. All of the men in the piece volunteered to be a part of the video and the larger project it is a part of.
But the last thing we wanted was to cloud the discussion of the topic.
The original decision to air this segment was made before Wednesday’s massacre. However, the staff and I had an internal debate about whether to show it at all this week. When we discussed putting it off, that conversation centered around race and perception – not the conversation we wanted the segment to invoke.
We decided against delaying the segment because we wanted to show multiple sides of what gun violence does in this country. We thought the issue of gun violence in our culture and society was an important conversation to continue — too important to put off for another week. The consequences of gun violence should not be hidden.
As I say to all audiences, Meet the Press should make all viewers uncomfortable at some point or we are not doing our job. I hope folks view the gun video as a part of the conversation we should all be having and not the totality of it.
You can WATCH the entire segment — which aired Sunday morning on NBC — below:
[h/t: Mediaite]