Why the Liberal Media Has So Little Credibility

A lot of people are exploiting the Trayvon Martin case to push their social or political agendas and to reinforce their assumptions about race in America. Some of what has been done by people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in the wake of the shooting is sheer demogoguery and some of what has been done by the media is willfully dishonest. Both are reprehensible. NBC's Today show falls into the latter category.

They apparently edited the exchange between the shooter, George Zimmerman, and the police dispatcher to make it appear that Zimmerman was racially profiling the Martin boy. As Erik Wemple reports:

NBC told this blog today that it would investigate its handling of a piece on the Today show that ham-handedly abridged the conversation between George Zimmerman and a dispatcher in the moments before the death of Trayvon Martin. NBC issued the following statement:

“We have launched an internal investigation into the editorial process surrounding this particular story.”

Wemple goes on to say that Fox News and the media watchdog site NewsBusters were the first to expose how the Today segment edited the tape of Zimmerman's call to the dispatcher to say this:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.

But here’s the actual conversation:

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.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

In the Today version, Zimmerman volunteered that this person “looks black,” a sequence of events that would more readily paint Zimmerman as a racial profiler. In reality’s version, Zimmerman simply answered a question about the race of the person he was reporting to the police.

One has to remember that when one reads or hears something in the mainstream liberal media, there's a very good chance that one is not reading or hearing the truth. When everyone just knows that a "white Hispanic" is ipso facto a racist then squeezing the facts to fit the narrative is completely justifiable. Just ask Dan Rather who bequeathed to us the concept of "fake but true."

In a postmodern world truth is fluid, it's subjective, it's whatever feels right to someone. All that matters is whether the "facts" conform to one's understanding of the way the world is. If they do then they're "true", if they don't then they're "false".

I hope when all of the tension and controversy over this tragedy subsides that Zimmerman, if his account of what happened is in fact true, sues NBC for defamation. I also hope that whoever was responsible for the edit of this tape, unless they have a very good reason for it, is fired. They've only succeeded in fanning the flames of racial animosity and misunderstanding.