Weinstein Company Requests Takedown of Katie Couric Interviews Featured in Free Beacon Story

The Weinstein Company, which owns the distribution rights for 2014’s Fed Up, requested that two interviews at the center of accusations that the Katie Couric-produced and narrated documentary used deceptive editing be removed from Youtube.

Youtube documentation lists the takedown request as “manually detected” and made by the Weinstein Company. The Washington Free Beacon has initiated a counter-notification requesting that the videos be reinstated on fair use grounds since the videos are the subject of a news report. The Free Beacon has moved the videos to another video platform and reinserted them into the original story while the dispute is settled by Youtube.

The videos feature two interviews from Fed Up where the producers of the film are accused of unethical editing techniques. In one of the videos Dr. David Allison is shown stumbling during an answer and then pausing for several seconds before the film cuts to another interview, an answer to the question he was asked is never shown. Dr. Allison said he did provide an answer to the question and that Couric assured him he could pause to rework answers if he needed.

“What she did to me is antithetical to not only just human decency and civility but it is antithetical to the spirit of science and democratic dialogue,” he told the Free Beacon.