Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) is in hot water again thanks to YouTube.
A few months after a county Republican Party in Wisconsin attempted to scrub the Internet of Duffy’s contention that he struggles to pay bills on his $174,000 per year taxpayer-funded salary, his staff pulled down another YouTube clip of Duffy after a local station in Eau Claire, Wisc., said Duffy’s staff “doctored” it.
A Duffy spokesperson told TPM the video has been removed at the request of the station and says no substantial changes were made.
The story, as WQOW-TV tells it:
On Thursday, WQOW News 18 covered Congressman Sean Duffy’s visit to Chippewa Falls. WQOW News 18 asked him a number of questions about jobs, the federal budget and Medicare, and then shared his answers in a story that night.
On Friday, his office sent out an e-mail that included a YouTube link of WQOW News 18’s story; a story they doctored by adding text over WQOW News 18’s video. Text meant to strengthen their boss’ image. The on-screen changes they made may have lead viewers to believe WQOW News 18 was endorsing Duffy’s message.
Duffy’s communications director, Daniel Son, made the video. The added text was quoted from Duffy’s own words in the WQOW story and laid over the footage of Duffy saying them. In a statement, Son told TPM that he took it down from YouTube at the request of the station and emphasized that his version of the clip “was not altered to change content.”
From Son’s statement:
As our intent was merely to make clear Congressman Duffy’s stance on addressing America’s unsustainable debt crisis and allowing our job creators to focus on what they do best, the video was taken down by our office according to Channel 18’s wishes once it became apparent that the text was causing some confusion.
WQOW did not immediately respond to a request for an on the record comment. Check out their report on the video below:
