NBC: “Curing Root Rot By Trimming Leaves”

NBC identified and whacked a fall guy for the fraudulent, narrative-based editing of the George Zimmerman 911 call we talked about last week.

NBC News has fired the producer it deemed most responsible for the airing of a selectively edited 911 call placed by George Zimmerman the night he killed Trayvon Martin.

Sources at NBC who asked not to be identified confirmed a New York Times story saying that a Miami-based producer was fired Thursday, though the sources refused to identify the former employee.

In the original 911 call, Zimmerman is heard describing Martin as such: “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.”

The dispatcher then asks: “OK, and this guy – is he white, black or Hispanic?”

“He looks black,” Zimmerman responds.

The version NBC ran, though, was much shorter and did not include the question posed by the 911 operator.

“This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black,”

In other words, the producer who let the narrativizing of the news slip out too clumsily was sacked.  The executives whose policy “narrative-based news) actually is are still being chauffeured around New York.

16 thoughts on “NBC: “Curing Root Rot By Trimming Leaves”

  1. Your colleague Ed’s partner at HotAir, Allahpundit, has a great term for news items that happen to fit a particular narrative – “Too good to check”. From the outset of this tragic taking of life, the stories have been ‘too good to check’ for the dominant media culture.
    Need a story tailor made to upset black people and promote the idea that blacks are (and by extention, President Obama is) under attack from reich wing, fearful of the ‘other’, bitter clinger, pale skinned, vigilante’s? – I present to you George Zimmerman (ein Deutsch!!) who’s called 911 dozens of times, lives in a gated community and is licensed to carry a firearm.
    Of course it turns out when FACTCHECKED (by the internet of all places) that Zimmerman is only ‘white’ because the NY Times decided to bring out the blood tests used by S. Africa’s Apartheid regimes to determine his ‘true’ race. He dialed 911 mainly because of his years as a neighborhood watch volunteer and this was their training. His reasons for carrying a firearm were his own – but years ago Florida criminals of all colors were targeting people known to be tourists – due to their rental car license plates – as they knew these people wouldn’t be armed.
    I hope that all parties get justice in this case. I also hope that this story accelerates the pace with which the dominant media culture dinosaur goes extinct.

  2. I wouldn’t say that NBC has identified the producer in question. That producer is still anonymous to the general public and may already be working in MSM at another network.

    Zimmerman on the other hand has had his reputation smeared across the country.

  3. We’re remiss not to highlight the fact that this dismissal is a de facto admission by NBC that it’s producer engaged in jury tampering and obstruction of justice, which are crimes most foul.

    Let us, therefore demand charges be laid, and since we are sure that the producer is guilty (for we have declared it to be so) a lengthy prison sentence is expected.

    Let us friends, assure one and all that lest there be justice for Zimmerman, neither peace will there be.

  4. swiftee, proving jury tampering without actually going after specific people who are already on a jury is hard if not impossible. I should know, we certainly have enough lawyers here.

  5. Watch this story:
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57411187-504083/oklahoma-shooting-rampage-jake-england-and-alvin-watts-arrested-for-tulsa-killings/

    Police identified both suspects as white, while all five victims in the rampage early Friday were black. Authorities said one of the suspects may have been trying to avenge his father’s shooting two years ago by a black man.

    . . .

    A family friend told the Associated Press that England was “a good kid” and “a good, hard worker,” who “was not in his right mind” after losing his father and the January suicide of his fiancee, with whom he’d recently had a baby.

    “If anybody is trying to say this is a racial situation, they’ve got things confused,” said the friend, who described England as Cherokee Indian. “He didn’t care what your color was. It wasn’t a racist thing.”

  6. “I still say Zimmerman should sue for slander and libel.”

    I’d be willing to bet that the payout for this one will be bigger than “Richard Jewell v. NBC”.

  7. Of course it turns out when FACTCHECKED (by the internet of all places) that Zimmerman is only ‘white’ because the NY Times decided to bring out the blood tests used by S. Africa’s Apartheid regimes to determine his ‘true’ race.

    Or maybe because the initial police report identified Zimmerman as a “white male.”

  8. So the NY Times trusts the police report re: race, but not the self-defense claim?

  9. Mr Winston- To echo what Terry said above, it appears that the NY Times and other news agencies are picking and choosing the parts of the police report they offer in their coverage. Nothing wrong with a free press having editorial judgement, but many of the judgements have been to the detriment of Zimmerman leading to my point that some details of the story have been ‘too good to check’.

  10. I have it on good authority that Charles Manson is doing a happy dance over this situation. He was only 40 some odd years off about that race war.

  11. I’ve read in several places that NBC settled out of court with Jewell to something in excess of $500K.

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