- Following in line with their broadcast television colleagues who deliberately edited the audio of a 9-1-1 call of George Zimmerman, the Florida community watch volunteer who shot teenager Trayvon Martin, to falsely impute racist motives to him, MSNBC.com, in an unbylined piece did the exact same thing in text form, stripping out vital information which made Zimmerman appear to be racially motivated against Martin, who is black.
(What the transcript said):
ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he's up to no good, [begin ellipsis] or he's on drugs or something. It's raining, and he's just walking around, looking about.
911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic? [end ellipsis]
ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.
(What MSNBC broadcast in text and tape):
ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he's up to no good, .... He looks black.
No retraction was ever issued and the correction appeared as if by magic once the blogs started picking up on the deception.
ABC misrepresents tape of Zimmerman at police station:
- (what ABC broadcast)
A police surveillance video taken the night that Trayvon Martin was shot dead shows no blood or bruises on George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch captain who says he shot Martin after he was punched in the nose, knocked down and had his head slammed into the ground.
But then forensics specialists enhanced the video and located this:
And finally, the New York Times suddenly realized Zimmerman wasn't a gigantic raging lunatic, while Trayvon wasn't a flyweight either. Zimmerman has been described as anywhere from 220 pounds up to 240, Trayvon as 140. Turns out both weights were wrong:
Either the NY Times needs to tear out the front page or they have just delivered an epic fail. In either case, they have delivered a tilt to the scales of justice.
In a long attempt to detail the night of the Trayvon Martin killing they include this description of the fatal scuffle:
However it started, witnesses described to the 911 dispatcher what resulted: the neighborhood watch coordinator, 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, and the visitor, 6-foot-1 and 150, wrestling on the ground.
UPDATE: Now CNN has enhanced the 9-1-1 call and their own reporter is casting doubt on the alleged "racial slur" contained within:
“It certainly sounds like that word to me,” Gary Tuckman said when the audio was first enhanced. But after the latest enhancement, he’s not so sure:
“Now it does sound less like that racial slur. … From listening in this room, and this is a state-of-the-art room, it doesn’t sound like that slur anymore. It sounds like … we‘re hearing the swear word at first and then the word ’cold.’ And the reason some say that would be relevant, is because it was unseasonably cold in Florida that night and raining.”
The audio expert agreed it sounded like “cold,” and said the new method gets rid of a lot more background noise but doesn’t change the voice or words.
ABC, NBC/MSNBC, The New York Times and now CNN have all withdrawn, corrected, or disavowed their initial reports. So once again, the media abets the rush to judgement and lays waste to its already tattered reputation for a corrupt political agenda espoused by enablers and baiters of the lowest order. How about letting the system work the way it was meant to?