Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late Supreme Court Justice, took a surprising stance on kneeling during the national anthem during a 2016 interview, but reporter Katie Couric omitted the most contentious aspects of her comments from a Yahoo! News article on the conversation.
Couric explained that she wanted to “protect” Ginsburg because she was “elderly and probably didn’t fully understand the question.”
The Daily Mail first reported on the controversial journalistic decision, which Couric reveals in her new memoir Going There.
In the Yahoo! News article, Ginsburg, a liberal icon, is quoted as saying kneeling during the national anthem is “dumb,” “disrespectful,” and “arrogant.”
But Couric failed to mention that Ginsburg said people who kneel reveal “contempt for a government that has made it possible for their parents and grandparents to live a decent life.”
Couric worried that the comment exposed Ginsburg’s “blind spot” on racial justice. The day after the interview, the head of public affairs for the Supreme Court emailed Couric to say Ginsburg had “misspoken” and asked for her comments on kneeling to be removed from the interview.
It is unusual for journalists to remove quotes from an interview at the behest of the subject’s public relations team, especially when the subject is a powerful figure.
The Daily Mail adds:
Couric writes that she was ‘conflicted’ because she was a ‘big RBG fan’, referring to Ginsburg’s moniker.
Couric called a friend, David Brooks, a New York Times journalist, who advised her that Ginsburg probably didn’t understand the question, even though she was still serving on the Supreme Court at the time.
However David Westin, the former head of ABC News, advised Couric to keep it in.
‘She’s on the Supreme Court. People should hear what she thinks,’ he said, according to Couric.
Couric said she “lost a lot of sleep” over the decision and still isn’t sure if she made the right call.
