NBC Fires Producer of Misleading Zimmerman Tape

[babylonsister]

NBC Fires Producer of Misleading Zimmerman Tape
By BRIAN STELTER


NBC News has fired a producer who was involved in the production of a misleading segment about the Trayvon Martin case in Florida.

The person was fired on Thursday, according to two people with direct knowledge of the disciplinary action who declined to be identified discussing internal company matters. They also declined to name the fired producer. A spokeswoman for NBC News declined to comment.

The action came in the wake of an internal investigation by NBC News into the production of the segment, which strung together audio clips in such a way that made George Zimmerman’s shooting of Mr. Martin sound racially motivated. Ever since the Feb. 26 shooting, there has been a continuing debate about whether race was a factor in the incident.

The segment in question was shown on the “Today” show on March 27. It included audio of Mr. Zimmerman saying, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

But Mr. Zimmerman’s comments had been taken grossly out of context by NBC. On the phone with a 911 dispatcher, he actually said of Mr. Martin, “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.” Then the dispatcher asked, “O.K., and this guy — is he white, black or Hispanic?” Only then did Mr. Zimmerman say, “He looks black.”

The editing of the segment was initially noticed by NewsBusters, an arm of the Media Research Center, a conservative media monitoring group. On March 31, NBC told The Washington Post that it would investigate.

more...

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/nbc-fires-producer-of-misleading-zimmerman-tape/

[agenda 21.]

1. Funny...This seems like the first thread on this little news tidbit.

How does that music in the cartoons go? "Wah wah wah wah wahhhhhh..."

[NYC_SKP]

2. Good. Of course, that the clip was edited doesn't mean Zimmerman isn't a racist.

It just means that the media sucks.

OT: Hopefully, nobody confuses "Newbusters" with "Adbusters"; the former is a RW propagandist machine while the latter is an anti-corporate 99%-supportive group.

[mactime]

3. Suprising

that he actually got fired.
There should be a huge outrage over this, a news agency splices a tape to make it sound like a person said something they did not actually say.

[PotatoChip]

6. Not that I condone misleading editing,

and probably this guy should have been fired.

That said, this is par for the course w/much of the media. Faux 'news' by far being the reigning King of them all.

[vaberella]

4. Sorry to say the original context sounded worse.

“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.” <-- What an assumption by Zimmerman.

[Ian David]

5. This would have gotten him a promotion on Fox "News" under different circumstances. n/t

[Solomon]

7. What steams me about this stupid flap is that initially

the stations played the original whole clip. People still perceived that it was racial. The later version was truncated, giving rise to this bullshit.