NBC News is receiving criticism after claiming that a conservative social media user “deceptively edited videos” of John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat.
On Wednesday, NBC News published a report written by Ben Goggin titled, “Doctored videos exaggerate Fetterman speech issues in viral social media posts.”
Goggin claims the “deceptively edited videos” have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on both Twitter and TikTok.
According to Goggin, the videos were shared by critics of Fetterman.
The outlet noted Fetterman suffered a stroke in May.
“The videos include slight edits, such as cutting out the sound of the audience to make it appear as if he had abruptly stopped speaking (some of the stops occurred when he was pausing during moments of applause and crowd reaction, according to unedited videos seen by NBC News),” Coggin wrote.
He continued, “Other edits cut Fetterman off midsentence, to create the perception that what he was saying was nonsensical.”
Joe Calvello, a spokesperson for Fetterman, told NBC News, “It is pretty sad and frankly desperate that Dr. Oz’s MAGA allies are deceptively editing videos of John speaking in order to mock him while he recovers from a stroke.”
Goggin reported that TikTok removed the videos after NBC News flagged them.
The report explains that “videos of Fetterman’s speech Sunday built on the speculation, gaining the most traction on Twitter when they were posted by Greg Price, a senior digital strategist at X Strategies, a conservative political consulting group.”
According to Twitter messages exchanged with the outlet, Price did not respond to questions about “how the videos were edited or where he got them,” as Goggin reported.
Price took to Twitter to publish a lengthy thread responding to the report.
“So NBC News decided to accuse me of doctoring videos of John Fetterman that I posted. (I didn’t doctor anything). They also reached out to Twitter to try and get them censored,” Price tweeted.
He added, “And the bastards didn’t even include my full comment!”
Price explained, for one video, he “simply took things [Fetterman] said during a rally and edited them together into a Supercut.”
Here's the first video they accuse me of doctoring. As you can see, nothing is doctored. I simply took things he said during a rally and edited them together into a Supercut.https://t.co/pQXAB734aQ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 14, 2022
Instead of reporting on how Fetterman's handlers are hiding him from the public as much as they can due to his clear inability to speak properly, NBC News is working with them to try and censor me because I tweeted videos exposing it.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 14, 2022
Regime propagandists and enemy of the people pic.twitter.com/fLZkAYWS3n
Additionally, Price called Goggin a “garbage liberal hack” and a “loser.”
And in case you were interested, here's the garbage liberal hack who accused me of doctoring videos and tried to get Big Tech giants to censor them.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 14, 2022
What a loser.https://t.co/QGaqbmPHSl
Other users took to the platform to react to the report:
https://twitter.com/RichardGrenell/status/1570410421672345601
Breaking; @NBCNews (@COMCAST), working with Chinese-communist @tiktok_us, helps censor videos critical of Democratic candidate Fetterman. #ElectionInterference https://t.co/Ncw5cr7K01
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) September 15, 2022
The regime especially dislikes it when you humiliate them. Like when I posted videos of Antifa burning bibles and they got mad about it and accused me of doctoring the videos. https://t.co/5VYSyG6B61
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 15, 2022
We Republicans are fighting like it’s a level playing field, but it’s NOT. All the cards are stacked against us. We win with our ideas and with truth. But the voters have to hear us. #DebateFetterman @GOP https://t.co/Up8CKjkYOt
— Carla Sands (@CarlaHSands) September 15, 2022
As if the geriatric Senate isn’t impaired enough, @nbc is all in for a stroke patient who can barely form a coherent sentence. https://t.co/85gK0wWZ5p
— Ted Howze DVM (@Ted_Howze) September 15, 2022
NBC wants to ban super cuts. I’ll support this once cable news stops editing videos as well. https://t.co/mmuogVqNHd
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) September 15, 2022
The report comes just one day after Fetterman agreed to a televised debate with his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, next month.