Critics say the “Today” show attempted to incite racial anger when it cut crucial seconds from audio of a phone call placed by George Zimmerman just before he killed the teenager.
NBC News is being excoriated in some circles – with competitor Fox News Channel leading the charge – for selectively editing audio of the 911 call placed by George Zimmerman just before he killed Trayvon Martin.
The NBC segment in question featured anchor Ron Allen and ran on the Today show on Tuesday. On Thursday, Sean Hannity and guest Brent Bozell played the NBC version of the 911 call and compared it with the unedited version.
In the NBC segment, Zimmerman says: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”
The full version, though, unfolds like this:
Zimmerman: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.”
911 operator: “Okay. And this guy, is he white black or Hispanic?”
Zimmerman: “He looks black.”
After playing both versions, Hannity said: “They forgot the dispatcher’s question! How could NBC, in good conscience, do that?”
“This isn’t bias, this isn’t distortion, this is an all-out falsehood by NBC News,” answers Bozell, who runs a conservative watchdog group called the Media Research Center.
“When you hear him say, ‘he looks black,’ anyone watching that believes that there are racial overtones to what this man did,” Bozell says. “How could you not believe that? It goes with the narrative of the profiling. The only problem is, they edited out the dispatcher asking him, ‘what does he look like?’”
I would not expect anything less from this network. They have demonstrated their bias time and time again. What a shame though.
Every few years we have had a drug dealing issue on one corner or another around here.
I, like Zimmerman, have been reluctant to use race to describe dealers and customers.
I’d rather use license plate numbers, clothing descriptions and behavior such as stashing the drugs in a certain part of a baby’s carriage.
But the 9-11 operator always asks about race.
They ask, I tell.
When they ask, describe the suspect’s clothing, gait, anything they’re carrying. Not their skin color.
@JoeFromSidney:
Right, so… someone breaks the law and a witness calls the police and gives only that description status quo you said without hinting skin pigment or any other body features… Police will find dozens of people fitting just your very limited concept of suspect’s clothing, gait and gear they carry and might charge an innocent person for the crime. This is ignorance on your part, police need to know how the person looks physically as well with facial features and skin pigment.
NBC is now saying they will do an investigation of how the editing got done.
A statement from NBC:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/post/nbc-to-do-internal-investigation-on-zimmerman-segment/2012/03/31/gIQAc4HhnS_blog.html
Fox guarding the hen house?
This hack-job by NBC is typical of the left and those who advocate destroying the rule of law to nail Zimmerman.
It also explains how some of the more simple minds at Flopping Aces were so easily led astray, believing that the thug Martin was somehow, inexplicably an innocent little child.
Glad I’m not weak-minded and didn’t fall for this bullcrap.
This is just abominable.
I’m sorry, They are doing their own investigation ??? Don’t we all ready have a group of people that are paid with our tax money to do this…. FCC ….. Wouldn’t this be more impotent then someone using a bad word during prime time ???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NDPT0Ph5rA
Do your jobs or give me my money back…
@Nan G: #5 LOL oh come on, thats got to be a joke
everyone KNOWS how it got done, it was to follow the narrative of the “white hispanic”(first time i’ve ever heard that term used) shot a little angelic black kid
Hey, did CBS ever reveal the results of “their investigation” over the 2004 scandal involving Bush’s TEXANG paper-work?
Still waiting!
let’s face it, nbc did a “blowjob” on the story. You might just recall that the ceo’s of both nbc and abc have offered their entire networks to promoting opie. As you will be quick to forget-nbc and abc “shook down” it’s employee’s for political monies to big ears…ever think that opie is gay? If he is, God help the alternative life styles in this nation. He would ruin the alternative environment.
That NBC would alter a voice tape to aid the liberal lynch mob that has formed should not surprise anyone. The only surprise is that they did such a sloppy job. Like Sixty Minutes when Dan Rather tried to bring down Bush fifty days out from the election in ’04 with forged documents, NBC got cocky and believed nobody checks this stuff.
It’s not that way anymore. The msm, the voice of the DNC, is going under the microscope everyday, in every way.
Sorry NBC…it’s a new world…just ask Dan.
It’s no big deal. But, conservatives are fond of making a big deal out of nothing.
@Liberal1 (objectivity):
*All that anti-Israel faux-photography of the ”damage” done by Israel was no big deal either……but because so many media outlets published the garbage Israel is still wrongly accused to this day.
*The ”fake-but-accurate” memo supposedly from GWBush’s time in the TANG was no big deal either……but because it was pushed by a leftist-compliant media to this day some think it was real.
*Had this faked edited version been believed by a majority of blacks we would have seen that 75,000 at yesterday’s rally for Trayvon.
Instead only 2 or 3 thousand showed up to hear Sharpton and other race-bait.
We should all be glad this was the case.
I am.
@Liberal1 (objectivity): only because liberals, like YOU are too stupid to understand what journalism is supposed to be