Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman - the mainstream media has become an advocate in the public discussion.

I think that what disturbs people who didn't have any particular axe to grind is the sense that the media was ginning up a lynch mob against George Zimmerman. This sense was supported by weird narrative hooks such as calling Zimmerman a "white Hispanic" - according to Steven Saylor, the word should be "mestizo," but that's never going to fly.

It seems that claim after claim made by the media in setting up the typical "racist outrage scenario" was getting batted away - Zimmerman has black friends, he's not white, he lives in a mixed race community, he was subjected to a beating, Trayvon Martin may have had an association with burglary, etc.

This morning it seemed that the media has gone from reporting the news to explicit advocacy in the interest of putting Zimmerman - who is presumed innocent - behind bars. ABC showed a video that it claimed demonstrated that Zimmerman had not been assaulted. The problem, according to the Daily Caller,is that the video shows what may actually be a laceration or scar:

“A police surveillance video taken the night that Trayvon Martin was shot dead shows no blood or bruises on George Zimmerman,” ABC News reporter Matt Gutman wrote, noting that Zimmerman told police “he shot Martin after he was punched in the nose, knocked down and had his head slammed into the ground.”

ABC News reported that Zimmerman appears uninjured in the video. But a still image from the video indicates what appears to be a vertical laceration or scar several inches long.

The other thing is that we've seen this kind of rush to judgment based on narratives of racism play out badly in the past:

In this country of 300,000,000+, it shouldn't be too hard for the national media to come up with actual news stories to illustrate its favorite themes of White Racism, the Invalidity of Stereotypes, and so forth. And yet, when the prestige press decides to go all in on a story to Push the Narrative, like Duke Lacrosse case or Jena Six, they usually seem to wind up with another travesty, playing Walter Sobchak with poor Donnie's ashes at the end of The Big Lebowski (video).

The Trayvon Martin story was supposed to demonstrate how white people invidiously stereotype young black males and get away with murder because they are white. First, though, it turned out that George Zimmerman wasn't what most people are told to think of as white.

Perhaps, with a Black President and all, people are thinking that things were supposed to be more, well, post-racial.