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NBC Apologizes For Editing Zimmerman 911 Call
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that NBC has completed its investigation into the Today show's mishandling of the police dispatcher's conversation with George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case with a finding of error, plus an apology. The apology addresses the show's failure to accurately abridge the conversation between Zimmerman and the dispatcher in this high-profile case. This is how the program portrayed a segment of that conversation: Zimmerman: 'This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black' Here what was actually said: 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 an appearance on Fox News's Hannity, Brent Bozell, president of the conservative Media Research Center, called this omission on the part of Today an 'all-out falsehood' — not just a distortion or misrepresentation. 'On the good front, [NBC] acknowledges the mistake and apologizes to viewers for the bad editing. It's a forthright correction and spares us any excuses about the faulty portrayal. On the bad front, the statement is skimpy on the details on just how the mistake unfolded,' writes Erik Wemple. 'In light of all that's happened, Zimmerman may be a tough person for a news network to apologize to, but that's just the point: Apologies are hard.'"
Some stupid moron in the editing room or a producer did it on purpose. At least they didn't strap a bomb to him and blow him up like they did the cars.
We apologise for the fault in the subtitles. Those responsible have been sacked.
Zimmerman and his parents probably care that they were libeled on national TV in an attempt to rile a mob to literally murder them.
That apology and a few million dollars should make the hurt feelings go away.
It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about.
Guilty guilty GUILTY! A thousand counts of guilty for ... um ... being bored in public? "I demanded he present his papers and pointed out that any self-respecting member of the proletariat would not lethargically meander about and instead optimize his steps in an effort to better serve his comrades."
... look at those servers cook!
And NBC? Why, they were giving you the best news money can buy. You wanted George Zimmerman to be super guilty, super racist and super scumbag and that's what they kindly provided you. Your eyeballs and mouse clicks lead NBC to place money over justice or facts (the true Capitalists that we all are). SO either stop watching them or just forgive them for entertaining you a little too well. A young man was killed by some power-tripping neighborhood watch? We can easily incite a race war with our reporting, you say? NBC sees dollar signs! Just a touch of editing and
Normally I would feel unqualified to make any comments on this case unfortunately it's unclear if this will ever be brought before an actual court so this might end up being the only thing done -- mock trials in the worst format of all: the 24 hour news cycle.
My work here is dung.
Please stop, this is not news for nerds.
Editors stay in your lane. There is nothing relevant in this case to tech, or nerd issues.
Nerds frequently walk around looking awkward, wearing hoodies, and scaring simpletons who think they must be D&D satan worshippers. Seems relevant to me.
(And, yes, the D&D satan thing probably is dating me ...)
I think you have improperly equated "news for nerds" with "nerdy news".
I'm a nerd. This interests me. Therefore this is news for nerds. Get off your high horse.
An unarmed kid is dead because someone with a gun pursued and shot him. The ethnicity of the two parties is irrelevant. The shooter should be on trial for murder.
If it bothers you, stay away. Each and every day I see people here bitch about how crap Slashdot has become. It has been crap for years. Misleading titles, bad edits, slashvertisements, you name it. And the crap is exactly what people make come back day after day (so Slashdot gets rewarded for it), to bitch about it all, how shitty Slashdot has become (like it was really that much better a few years back). If you really care, stay away. If enough people do this, maybe things will change. But I doubt it. The Slashdot of the 90s has been dead a long, long time.
Perl Programmer for hire
This just goes to show you that Fox News is not the only one who will happily edit or take out of context something they feel will boost their ratings or meet their internal bias/views. It's why I've stopped watching/reading all mainstream news. I just occasionally glance at "smaller"news sites and browse /. (though most /. summaries also twist the facts to meet the submitter/editor's own bias/views, but the topics are generally more interesting to me.)
Considering the weight we put on our Jury system, this kind of reporting should actually come with heavy penalties. AFAIK, Zimmerman has yet to go to trial (if ever), and reporting like this will only improperly skew the potential jury pool one way or another. And because many Americans still trust "news" (be it Fox News or NBC or CNN), they will take things like this as absolute fact; a correction never gets as much time or weight as the original story, so they're far more likely to miss that. This American Life's correction a few weeks back was the proper way to go about it, and that's likely a millennial event. And I'm too lazy to look it up, but a few months back there was a report on /. that even after someone is told that a previously stated "fact" was actually a mistake or outright lie, an alarming portion of people still hold the previous "mistruth" as fact.
Furthermore, an incident like this actually helps Zimmerman--there's plenty of evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, to lob against this guy, so when you go out of your way to make up or twist such things it only lends credence to the idea that the guy isn't as bad as he seems.
Or if he's the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood, steal his wallet, sucker-punch him in the face with a knock-out punch, then strip him of his clothes, all the while laughing and videoing on your cell phone.
http://rmirror.net/r/videos/comments/rsc0g/this_makes_my_blood_boil/
Editors stay in your lane. There is nothing relevant in this case to tech, or nerd issues.
Manipulation of recorded data by a major media outlet to change peoples' perception is not relevant to tech?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
That might be overthinking it a bit. Lets try to figure out what the "today show" is. Is it carefully calibrated propaganda, or just irrelevant chewing gum for the mind?
Lets look at their website to see how they show themselves to the world... "Trayvon's parents to lead nighttime rally in Miami " "And the most huggable TODAY anchor is." "5 confessions of a ‘Scary Mommy’ " "Beard shares struggle to be ‘beautiful, thin and perfect’ " "Why is Savannah barefoot at the news desk? " "Kate and William wax figures unveiled at Madame Tussauds" "Hey, girl, watch out for that taxi! Gosling to the rescue ""Too-beautiful British writer: ‘The bile proves my point’ " "Matt to Ryan Seacrest: Are you taking my job?" "Has Obama locked up the Trekkie vote? " "Mom recounts saving daughters from ‘terrifying’ tornado "Where to buy Kate and Pippa Middleton's favorite jeans " "‘Reunion’s’ Levy: ‘I’m tired of being a sex symbol’ "Seeing double: Celebrities get the wax treatment "
I think a detailed analysis indicates its basically all crap... chewing gum for the mind... meaningless trivialities. Mostly "human interest stories" and "celebrity gossip". Good to hear that I'm not missing anything... according to ratings I'm part of the 99% of the population that doesn't watch that kind of trash.
Considering that only around 1% of the population watches, its probably not the ideal vehicle to propagandize to the masses.
I would imagine a show like this occasionally F-s up a lasanga recipe or mis-pronounces a TV stars name, and no one cares, its just that for once they covered something I'm told I should care about, and they were not used to the higher standard required for the scrutiny. My guess is the managers who put the B-team in charge of an A-team task will get off free by throwing their employees under the bus. Clear case of mis-management. If they had stuck to celebrity gossip, a normal screwup would have been OK and unnoticed.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
dont exist to inform viewers of current events in a timely and accurate manner as part of their FCC mandate to offer the public a general good. Commercial television networks offer a news program to sell advertising air-time by finding stories and topics that revolve around easily exploitable human emotions. The abuse of context and deliberate indulgence with which networks engage in editorializing a story to the point of satire should be all the proof you need.
This isnt an NBC, CNN, FOX or ABC problem, its a problem with formerly independent news sources suddenly being treated as some sort of cash-cow revenue component of a television stations earnings, instead of a service offered to people without cost, as the FCC license intended.
get the sponsorship out of television news entirely. it should be unbiased objective reporting that sounds like C-SPAN and repeats itself every 30 minutes to an hour and holds itself accountable to some sort of law that requires truthfulness in journalism. The kind of standard that explicitly keeps fox out of canada.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I'm going to have to ask for a citation for that outlandish claim.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Everyone is biased, but not everyone is a liar.
(And, yes, the D&D satan thing probably is dating me ...)
Whatever kind of guys you're into. We're not here to judge.
None of us know everything. Therefore we're all naïve.
This article refers to things that NBC decided, did, or said regarding their outrageous editing of George Zimmerman's 911 call.
But NBC exists only in a legal sense. It has no brain. It makes no decisions. And it's really incapable of giving a rat's ass about criticisms it might receive from the right of the political spectrum.
The things that NBC "says" or "does" are really said or done by the people who work, mostly anonymously, inside the protective bubble we refer to as NBC.
We're not permitted to know which of those people made the "error" in question. But we know who is the one ultimately responsible for it.
That would be Steve Capus, the president of NBC news. As the top guy, he is ultimately responsible for everything NBC "says" or "does".
And now, Steve Capus is responsible for the whitewashing of this "error."
Steve Capus must be held accountable for this travesty that happened on his watch. Steve Capus must step down as the president of NBC News.
Every post about this issue should frame it as what it really is: Malicious malpractice, committed and covered up by Steve Capus.
That's a very serious misrepresentation of the phone call. NBC obviously did this to rile up viewers and try to create the story (and central character) to be larger than life. Journalistic integrity at its worst.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
Or, were they actually trying to stir up a crowd of people to *literally* (not figuratively) murder GZ?
One of their front page website stories is titled "Trayvon's parents to lead nighttime rally in Miami" so ... yeah, they're "literally" trying to round up a night time lynch party and get them fired up by slandering him. Imagine how many will tune in to watch, if/when the media manages to get Zimmerman lynched, which seems to be the media gameplan.
Would you see it through such hyperbolic lenses if it were a network that hewed closer to your personal worldview?
Lets see if that network matches my worldview.. lets look at their non-zimmerman slandering stories right off their own website ... "Beard shares struggle to be ‘beautiful, thin and perfect’" (apparently she's a female athlete) ... "Kate and William wax figures unveiled at Madame Tussauds" ... "Where to buy Kate and Pippa Middleton's favorite jeans " WRT to worldview, those clowns are not on the same planet as I am. We're talking about not even being able to compare due to lack of common ground.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This wasn't a mistake, it was a deliberate misrepresentation on the behalf of whoever did the editing or ordered the editing done.
When the corporation claims 'oops' when it is obviously deliberate, it leads to distrust. There most definitely should have been firings over this.
While absolutely true, this doesn't improve what the Today show did; as well, from reading the article it looks like they didn't apologize until they were caught. The only difference between the two is that Fox News is a kid that's willing to lie for its own wants; NBC, on the other hand, is an adult that's willing to lie for its own wants.
They're still both ready and willing to intentionally misinform, and thus both still complete bullocks.
The operator on the phone telling Zimmerman that he "didn't need to follow" Martin is meaningless. The only questions that matter are:
1. Who started the fight?
2. Did Zimmerman have a reasonable belief that using his gun was the only way to escape serious injury or death?
In the beginning I thought the same. I've been through the concealed carry class, I know that if you start a confrontation you aren't protected. But if the confrontation breaks off then everything starts over.
Zimmerman follwing him, confronting him and shooting wouldn't protect him. That's what the initial story that hit the press said. That's why I was initially on Martin's side.
But Zimmerman's version is that he lost Martin, which legally ends that confrontation. Then Martin came up to him, beginning another confrontation. Martin confronted him, and proceded to physically assault him. If that is the case, then shooting Martin was clearly self defense.
Remember to ignore the "little kid" image being projected in the press. Martin was 17 years old and 6'2" tall, easily able to be a real physical threat to Zimmerman.
So you were there and witnessed everything? He may be a murderer, he may be guilty of manslaughter, or maybe he's not guilty and it was actual self defense. I would say 99%+ here on slashdot don't have all the facts. And if you just think because he killed that 17 year old man (not kid BTW, 6'3" 170 or something) regardless of circumstances, he's a murderer, well I strongly disagree. I'm all for stand your ground laws. My state, they want you to run away, by then I'd prolly be dead if my life was in danger.
This brought to you by the same race war inciting media that's barely whispered the fact that Treyvon was caught with a burglary kit and women's jewelry and suspended from school. Oh yeah, love the fact that they're digging back two or three years for the most baby faced picture they could find.
In the heirarchy of victim classes, outrage manufactured by the media only happens when a higher victim class is attacked by a lower one. For example, anybody but a black attacks a black, it's outrage. White attacks Hispanic, outrage. Black attacks a Hispanic, no problem. Black gang beats a while kid within an inch of his life just for being white in the wrong place, no problem, no hate crime.
This also works for sexual orientation. Straights kill a gay, HUGE outrage even when their motive wasn't over the sexual orientation. Gays kill a straight, who cares?
The police have yet to explain all the things that they did NOT do in this case.
No drug/alcohol test for Zimmerman.
No checking Martin's cell phone.
No photos of the damage to Zimmerman that would support Zimmerman's claims.
The cops are looking rather incompetent. So WHY are the cops incompetent?
Really? No one lies in the real world? I don't think this was an accident by NBC. I think they thought it would make the story sell better to give it an edgier angle.
As to your particular bias, I wouldn't speculate, and it doesn't matter to me. Like I said, everyone is biased (including me) but not everyone lies.
Wow, sounds like that friend of yours needs a new job. Calling the cops to come out and interview every single person who's "wandering around aimlessly" sounds like a thoroughly inefficient use of taxpayer resources. I can't imagine how someone "wandering around" can even scope houses out anyway - I'd say the point that becomes suspicious is when the suspect is also paying an inordinate amount of attention to the houses while wandering.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Of course it was on purpose, from the very beginning it was meant to increase ratings. This is a local story, one you would find on many nightly news local stations. In what way is this a story deserving of national headlines? Why? Because they can make it such and inflame the viewership to create controversy which sells ratings. They are using the death of a teenager to increase ratings pure and simple.
He's lived here for 30 years and watched crime go up and up over that time. Every week he tells us of another house that's been broken into. In almost all instances, the house was cased prior to the robbery to determine when it would be unoccupied.
Crime is best prevented by the people knowing their neighborhood and being able to spot anything out of place. If an unknown 6'2" black guy in a hoodie walking apparently randomly at night is out of place in a neighborhood, then so be it.
Oh no, that would be profiling! Racist! Hate to break it to you, but NOT profiling according to statistically relevant criteria is plain stupid and a waste of resources.
NBC didn't just make a "slip of the edit wheel." This was a willful act of defamation designed for the express purpose of both defaming Mr. Zimmerman's character, and tampering with potential jurors to create a predisposition towards guilt.
It is obvious.
Most states DO have this. It's called "brandishing." Exposing the firearm for the purpose of intimidation not related to a defensive reason.
The thing is, if you get punished for pulling it w/o using it, you'll end up with a lot more people shot in the back. Why? Many times simply pulling a concealed gun ends the threat: the idiot threatening you has a sudden stroke of intelligence and bolts or submits. Thankfully, a lot of things can and do change in the half second between breaking leather and presentation on target. That saves many idiots' lives.
you had to pay a (pretty big) fine if you drew a sword in anger without striking. I'd really like to see something like this for concealed weapons.
Isn't that what "brandishing" is about, effectively? If you take it out and don't shoot because the situation doesn't warrant it, then it didn't warrant taking it out in the first place... and then you're committing a crime of threatening someone with a gun.
You don't exercise? When I 18, I was 6'2" 170lbs. I was a lean and trimmed U.S. Army Ranger and I guarantee that I could have lifted Zimmerman's torso by his shirt. We're talking about a 6'2" 17 year old athlete, by the way, only a year younger than what I was in the previous sentence. As for slamming someone's head into the curb, you can easily do that by palming their face/head.
No more so than the people hell bent on making sure he (and I) cant have one.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi