The Spectacle Blog
One of the horrifying sideshows of the Trayvon Martin carnival is how NBC News edited audio of George Zimmerman’s 911 call to create the false impression that Zimmerman had said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good … he looks black.”
As Dan Riehl at Breitbart.com’s Big Journalism reported last month, NBC edited out a key part of that call. Zimmerman said that Martin appeared to be “on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.” The 911 dispatcher then asked, “Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?” Zimmerman was merely answering the dispatcher’s question.
Not only did NBC edit the audio, but also edited Zimmerman’s quotes as published on its Internet site, helping to foster the false belief that Zimmerman had singled out Martin because of his race. Yesterday, NBC News fired a producer/reporter at its Miami affiliate — the second such reported firing in connection with the deceptive edit — and the Miami Herald quoted an unnamed official at the Miami station:
“The network is very sensitive about the whole Al Sharpton/MSNBC issue, so when the right-wing bloggers started hammering, they needed to throw them fresh meat,” said the station source, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the controversy. “It’s not at all clear how this happened. Obviously, there was miscommunication.”
This would seem to suggest that NBC News is sacrificing low-level personnel — throwing “fresh meat” to “right-wing bloggers” — in an effort to evade corporate responsibility for an unethical deception that inflamed racial tensions in the Martin case. This enraged me:
Journalism has evidently become so politicized that there is apparently no longer even any need for NBC News to pretend that it is engaged in anything other than partisan propaganda — even when, in the pursuit of an overtly political agenda, they are providing manufactured falsehoods to serve as fodder for dangerous racial demagoguery.
Executives at NBC News need to provide a full accounting of how this happened. For weeks on end, their MSNBC cable outlet stoked the flames of outrage over the Martin case, outrage the network itself helped create with its editing of Zimmerman’s 911 call. NBC’s credibility as a news organization is at stake, and the network’s executives themselves — who created the corporate culture in which such deceptive “reporting” was tolerated — must be held responsible.
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Simon Templar| 4.26.12 @ 5:30PM
Has anyone seen the latest breaking news from Reuters on Zimmerman? Absolutely incredible!
He was asked by a black woman in the neighborhood to form a neighborhood watch group!!!! He grew up in an integrated household. The guy has a black ancestor! He starts a business with a black partner! He purchased the gun at the direction of police to defend himself from a pit bull! And the biggest one of all....he refuses to follow a previous suspect for fear of confrontation after police encourage him to keep watching in another incident months before when a young black man is seen looking in windows! The best of all...a black woman in the neighborhood who wants to remain anonymous because of fear of violence backs him up as to the rash of burglaries by young blacks in the area for the last two years.
Man, you can not make this stuff up!
This is a perfect opportunity to finally expose the race hustlers, political correctness, media corruption, and liberal hypocrisy that this nation has suffered under for decades.
Do you think conservatives or should I say republicans will have the brains to expose it?
Given your article, McCain I doubt it.....
Check it out.....
http://www.reuters.com/article.....8H20120425
albert constantine jr.| 4.26.12 @ 10:46PM
When I read the article when it was linked to Drudge on Wednesday I couldn't believe someone working for Reuters wrote it, or that they published it.
dipesto| 4.27.12 @ 1:50AM
Reuters got egg on its face several years ago when their stringer reporting on the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon had been had been sending London doctored photos and distorted news about the suffering of the poor Hamas civilians
bobmontgomery| 4.26.12 @ 5:53PM
Why does Ezra Klein still have a job? Ben Smith?
Dave Weigel? Why is the Columbia School of Journalism still accredited? Why does Bill O'Reilley still prop Sally Quinn up? Sharpton? OReilly used to have him on all the time to"respectfully" get Al's views on things. Why did FNC hire Sally Kohn and Santita Jackson? Journalism, print and broadcast is corrupt.
gearjammer| 4.27.12 @ 7:40AM
O'Reilly is all about himself. He secretly craves being declared " a national treasure " at a Medal of Freedom(is that what they call it) ceromony by a democrat president. He is an Irish mythologist( are not they all). A big Bobby Kennndy fan-what more do you need to know.
RJ| 4.26.12 @ 6:00PM
My complaint about much of the modern media is twofold. First, their reporting skills are often weak. So many times, in the rush to be the first to get the story out, they get it wrong, badly. Second, and most importantly, they have little if any commitment to reporting the facts. Much of the time they are politically motivated, while other times they simply are drama queens.
NBC's credibility as a news organization is as stake? No, they lost credibility a long time ago, along with most of the rest of the media. Today it is simply an entertainment and propaganda machine. Its too bad, because it makes getting the "news" much harder these days. The movie "Network" turned out to be more truthful than we thought at the time of its release.
Dan| 4.26.12 @ 6:03PM
The selective editing is more than indicative of an animus, a malice, directed against Zimmerman. Which means Zimmerman needs to lawyer up and start tossing our lawsuits.
And these other people, Caucasians, who are getting brutalized and beaten because of the coverage of the Zimmerman case, they too need to lawyer up and sue.
beebop2| 4.27.12 @ 5:29AM
Think how over the top they would have been if Zimmerman was Jewish ....
Mike W| 4.27.12 @ 9:04AM
It would have been worse for Zimmerman if he was Jewish? BS. The Zimmerman could have been would have been a white Southern Baptist or maybe even a Mormon. Do you really think that MSM, many of which are Jews, would have been harder on Zimmerman for being Jewish?
ggoblue| 4.27.12 @ 6:38AM
dan, you beat me to it...maybe zimmerman is waiting until he beats the charges, but he needs to sue nbc and all the echo chambers for millions. mega millions.
Trinacria| 4.26.12 @ 7:21PM
To suggest that NBC is in danger of losing it's credibility as a news organization is tantamount to suggesting that Pamela Anderson is in danger of losing her virginity. The only difference is that Pamela Anderson actually once had her virginity...
patriot 1742| 4.26.12 @ 9:01PM
That is a great comparison.
patriot 1742| 4.26.12 @ 8:59PM
What is amazing is that all of a sudden everyone is saying that the media lied and distorted the truth - in fact this is the norm not the exception. This is not the first time this has happened and I doubt that it will be the last - you see the 98 per cent of those in the main stream media are liberal and cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Your best option is to not listen to them.
Cloudbuster | 4.27.12 @ 9:47AM
I'd say you're spot on there. What is happening is that there are now so many independent voices over there that the media's decades-long campaign of disinformation is falling apart and they're unprepared to cope with it.
Rathergate was the first major crack, but does anyone seriously think that sort of thing hadn't been going on for decades before that?
We've recently learned how Walter Cronkite misreported the Tet Offensive and effectively caused the U.S. to lose Vietnam on the battlefield of public opinion. It has probably happened dozens of times that we simply never knew.
Occam's Tool| 4.27.12 @ 12:09AM
I have rarely seen the media report the truth accurately. I was the psychiatrist for the Alabama Chain gang---that was a major story, given the concern over psychological damage I was a MAJOR player, and the media got EVERYTHING wrong.
Bob S| 4.27.12 @ 12:26AM
Neil Postman nailed it years ago in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Entertainment. The fundamental nature of TV is visual. It cannot be escaped and consequently the medium controls/warps the message, which can only be eye candy/entertainment. Nothing can be effectively communicated on TV that has to do with abstract values or principles as compared to print.
IOW NBC and the rest of the moron mob mainstream media is doing what it will always do: entertain the prevailing cultural taboos of the disingenuous guilty white liberals that operate it.
Note bene, it wouldn't be any better if conservatives ran TV, it would only be different propaganda, but just as bad.
spike59| 4.27.12 @ 6:10AM
nothing new for NBC, and they're not alone:
http://walterolson.com/articles/crashtests.html
the MSM has been lying to viewers for DECADES
gearjammer| 4.27.12 @ 7:52AM
Matt Lauer a diaper salesman to our sainted elderley just signed for 25 mil base. Media money machines always rake it in-rating be damned. They are not free enteprise-ala carte cable-pay only for channells you want cuts them way down to size. You do not buy all items in the super market, only what you want. Tome for this now with television-c'mon GOP ! Dems were dancing in streets over some 5 dollar a month bank charge, how about saving 25 a month on calble and the rest, and why the hell is getting some so called " high speed " internet so freaking much ? Seriously just some bits sent via signal to a reciever-anyone questioning these rip offs ? Who gets all this money ? Millionaire and billionare democrats the feed ACLU, Sierra and all the rest , plus fund dem campaigns and much more-and we send them our money to get maybe a show or two we like ? Oh, sports, too. Demand lower costs-ala catre programming-watch the money machine blow up-watch California go down to even lower lows-kill them all, financially of course
LarryK| 4.27.12 @ 8:32AM
Al Sharpton's prayer at night,
Please make Zimmerman white (and Jewish)
megapotamus| 4.27.12 @ 10:15AM
Yes, the NBC audio fraud was bad especially as it had the earliest impact but there seems to be little discussion of the ABC video fraud where they ran distorted security video and added chyron graphics to obscure Zimmerman's injuries. It was this report that put the matter over the top. The phonied up lack of injuries made Zimmerman's claims unlikely to an even greater measure than the presence of injuries were corroborating. Now we've all see the REAL pics and plainly Zimmerman's head was being cracked open like an egg. It's too late, of course. The cast has hardened. This was at least as plainly deliberate and politically malicious as the audio and under NO scenario could it be a simple accident or oversight.
Nancy in NC| 4.27.12 @ 12:17PM
Does anyone seriously think it's possible for Zimmerman to get a fair trial?
The jury will be scared to death not to convict him of something. And rightly so. In order to stay alive they will need to change their names and move...maybe even have plastic surgery!
An other than guilty find will result in riots, blood in the streets, race wars, and perhaps, martial law. Now wouldn't be convenient for Obummer and crew?
Conseravtive Bob| 4.27.12 @ 1:28PM
I believe that Mr. Zimmerman is focused at the present on self preservation (avoiding the New Black Panther Party and its minions) and defending himself in the legal proceedings.
I hope when that is concluded he hires extremely effective legal counsel and lays a major suit on Comcast, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CNN (let us not forget their distortion in this as well) and the individual on air personalities involved.
What should the punitive damages be when an entire corporate press operation willfully fabricates and disseminates outright lies that place an individual in the international spotlight resulting in a bounty being place on your head and marches organized orchestrated and broadcast live for days by the same corporate news organization and it various talent and affiliates.
This is the clearest opportunity I have ever seen for the liars to be held to account and punished.
The damage was not to Zimmerman alone but to his entire family.
In addition to a hefty damage award, all of the participating news organizations should, as part of the settlement, be required to broadcast a disclaimer prominently at the beginning of every news or opinion program and segment.
“Caution this company has been found to fabric and distort information; the programming to follow is for entertainment and political purposes only and should not be relied upon in any way without independent verification.”
Tom Kyba| 4.27.12 @ 1:38PM
If the Reuters report is true then this issue needs to be centered upon and repeated ad-freaking nauseum 'til some real heads roll at NBC. The pres. of NBC should be hounded and hounded.....actually, no that's starting to sound like what liberals would do. Instead NBC should be flooded with millions of e-mails, snail mail and phone calls until they can't stand it anymore and are forced to acknowledge what they've done instead of choosing some low-level staffers to fire. And by the way, who says Pam Anderson was ever a virgin?
Bob S| 4.28.12 @ 3:39AM
Wow, so NBC is conscious of how inflammatory Sharpton is, but decides to sacrifice low level employees to save face.
Talk about playing with fire.