Wow, the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case really isn't going well for the prosecution...

...if a leftist publication like TalkLeft can say this:

Rachel Jeantel was a train wreck as a witness. She did not help the state's case. She exposed the manipulations of Team Crump. She was impeached on a few significant matters (see below the fold.) And she admitted multiple lies. It was cringe-worthy but you couldn't take your eyes off it.

Most strikingly, she made Trayvon Martin out to be the profiler of Zimmerman. She said (on direct exam no less by the prosecutor) that shortly after first spotting Zimmerman, Martin described Zimmerman to her as a "Crazy-a*s Cracker" and later, described Zimmerman a few times as "this ni*ga" (as in this ni*ga following him.) The two minute clip above is of Rachel and the prosecutor repeating creepy a*s cracker over and over as the court reporter struggles to make out what she's saying, Rachel explaining that creepy as* cracker means a white person, then and expressing concern the creepy guy might be a rapist.

At her deposition, she couldn't identify Trayvon as the person crying out for help. Today, she tried to deny it, but when impeached with the transcript, admitted she told the defense, "It could be, like I said, I don't know. He has a baby voice some days, you know it's not."

Her answer to why she didn't tell the police about her being the last one to speak with Trayvon was laugh-out loud funny: "They said they got the guy, I thought they were supposed to call me." [More...]

Perhaps this is a case that shouldn't have been filed?

Perhaps it really is a travesty of justice that has ruined the life of an innocent man involved in a tragedy?

But, hey, it was an election year, and it did mobilize the base.

Asking again, is 2012 the year where the liberal media jumps the shark?

It's getting pretty bad when a person in denial about media bias begins to suspect that there is media bias:

The unchanged tape is a thousand miles distant from the mangled one, and NBC has said it is sorry for "an error made in the production process." But that is evasive mumbo jumbo. The editing was not a technical issue of production. It was a substantive issue of content, and the "error" happened to fit a thesis of racist homicide while making the network look like a watchdog hero. It seems to me to have been error with a purpose.

Sadly, very, very sadly, this NBC incident is one of many possible examples of an outlandish, rules-be-damned rush to judgment in which reporters and commentators are playing the roles of crazed prosecutor, judge and jury not about to wait for evidence.

According to a news report on findings by the PEW Research Center, news outlets have been paying more attention to this story than any other. For a stretch, the MSNBC cable network spent half its time on it, and one of MSNBC's hosts, longtime racial agitator Al Sharpton, has been leading protests. ABC embarrassed itself somewhat less than NBC when it claimed that a video of Zimmerman showed no signs he had been attacked by Martin. The issue matters because the reason police did not arrest Zimmerman was their believe he was defending himself. ABC was wrong about the video. It checked with forensic experts and changed its story.

Some of the bad journalism has been slightly more subtle, such as the frequent juxtaposition of a photo of an unshaven Zimmerman in a jail uniform next to a photo of Martin as an angelic looking kid. But there has also been journalism of the kind that produced an eyewitness who says he saw 6-foot-2 Martin on top of Zimmerman and that revealed how Martin had been expelled from school three times and was once found in possession of jewelry that was not his. Zimmerman, we have learned, is himself a minority -- his mother is Hispanic -- and has white as well as black family members. Black friends have spoken up for him and he has mentored a black child, although he also has some rough spots in his past.

What happened is a terrible tragedy, and it is understandable that many would react emotionally. But many have also seen journalistic unfairness in all of this. Jack Pitney, a professor at Claremont McKenna College, recently told the Christian Science Monitor that the story "undermines public confidence in mainstream news media, which is already pretty low." He noted PEW already says 77 percent of Americans think the press is generally unfair.

News is in a stage of dramatic transition. Newspapers and broadcast networks are in decline as new media -- cable TV, blogs and more -- are making themselves felt in ways both scary and encouraging. No one knows where it will end. This much we can bet on: If mature media forsake reasonable standards, it will end badly.

The tipping point cometh.

NBC has fired the person who edited the Zimmerman tape for making a mistake:

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.

Inside NBC, there was shock that the segment had been broadcast. Citing an anonymous network executive, Reuters reported that “the ‘Today’ show’s editorial control policies — which include a script editor, senior producer oversight and in most cases legal and standards department reviews of material to be broadcast — missed the selective editing of the call.”

On April 4, the network news division said in a statement that it deeply regretted the “error made in the production process.”

“We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers,” the network said.

It did not specify what steps it would take. But one day later it dismissed a Miami-based producer who had worked at NBC for several years.

The people with direct knowledge of the firing characterized the misleading edit as a mistake, not a purposeful act.

So, how come this isn't the story? Why don't we get details on how such a mistake could be made?

Jim Treacher observes:

I wonder how tough it is to find out the names of all the NBC News producers who were fired on April 5, 2012? Pretty tough, probably. Good job keeping a lid on this, NBC.

And these anonymous sources are actually sticking with the whoopsie defense. It was an accident. “D’oh! I seem to have edited out the three seconds of your conversation that make it clear you’re responding to a police dispatcher’s question, rather than volunteering a racist motive. Silly me!” Well, if it was an accident, why was this unnamed person fired? If it was an accident, what’s the thinking behind this clumsy attempt at a cover-up that makes people skeptical that it was an accident?

MSNBC went to battle stations when James O’Keefe committed a misdemeanor. They called it “Watergate Jr.” But when one of their own manufactures evidence in a racially charged shooting that’s become a nationwide scandal? Crickets. Guess they don’t want to step on Al Sharpton’s toes.

Nothing to see here, America. Let it be known that NBC News won’t smear you and then close ranks to cover up their wrongdoing. Unless it’ll help their ratings.

More Great Moments in Journalism.

I don't have to have an opinion on George Zimmerman - that's a matter potentially for a jury. But I am fascinated by how bad the reporting is on the story, and, to be sure, how the errors all point in the direction of the "preferred narrative."

Here is a post by Just One Minute pointing out that the press has shaped public attitudes by misreporting the frequency at which Zimmerman called 911:

As a launch point, let me pick up on this throw-away comment made by Rod Dreher in his own comments section:

I do think Zimmerman was a paranoid guy — I make this judgment based on his frequent 911 calls over the past year — but that doesn’t make him a murderer.

I can't establish the full context for that remark, but on March 20 Mr. Dreher wrote this:

The Orlando Sentinel reports that in the 13 months prior to the shooting, Zimmerman called 911 an astonishing 46 times.

And I have no doubt they did. But that was a widely circulated typo - per the City of Sanford website, Zimmerman nade those 46 calls from January 2004 to the present, not January 2011. Even NPR got this right, eventually, and I have seen appropriate updates by Ta Nehesi Coates at the Atlantic, and elsewhere.

But one could easily blink and miss it, so Mr. Dreher might well be continuing to pin the 'paranoid' label onto Zimmerman based on misreported and widely uncorrected information.

And:

However! The Times did a big calm-down walk-back today where they painstakingly reviewed the evidence. Zimmerman's life back to grade school was reprised. Surely they quietly fixed the error there, as they did with Zimmerman's weight (now reported as 170 lbs, down from the widely cited 240)?

If they did, I can't find it. Which is to say, neither "46" nor "forty-six" is showing up in a search. The closest they come is this subtle allusion:

Police records over the last several years suggest a man who was quite familiar with 911 dispatchers; who seemed, somehow, to be always in the middle of things. In October 2003, for example, on perhaps his greatest day in civic vigilance, Mr. Zimmerman chased after and assisted in the capture of a man who had stolen two 13-inch TV/DVD players from an Albertsons.

Pretty subtle! Would Mr. Dreher, or any other previously misinformed Times reader, realize that this meant the 46 calls were over eight years, not the previously reported fourteen months? Or would they grin knowingly and say "Familiar indeed - 46 calls in fourteen months familiar. Paranoid much?".

To be fair, I am not even sure the Times editors themselves are aware of the level of BS they have been propagating. If their goal is to correct the record and report a bit more responsibly going forward, maybe we will see those corrections appended in the next few days. I should provide a link to the NY Times Public Apologist for anyone who wants to waste their breath.

Neal Boortz does a good job of sourcing different issues...

...in the Trayvon Martin case.

It seems that he uses a trait that is sorely missing in the discussion - empathy, such as when he addresses the issue of Trayvon's mother getting a trade-mark for his name:

Many people seem to be upset that Treyvon Martin’s mother has filed for trademark protection for her son’s name. I can’t help but think that if people knew the real story here, they wouldn’t be outraged at all.

As soon as the Treyvon case gained national attention opportunists across the country started printing t-shirts, signs and other little goodies with Treyvon’s name on them. Some simply said “I am Treyvon.” Some t-shirts were vile – with pictures of Treyvon over printed racial insults. One “entrepreneur” announced plans for a collection of Treyvon hoodies.

Now put yourself in the place of Treyvon’s mother. She sees people across the country using her dead child’s name to make money and deliver messages, some of which she may not necessarily agree with. What does she do? She says something about it to her lawyer. Her lawyer tells her that she can protect her son’s name by filing for trademark protection. So she does. How can a rational person have a problem with this? If I had been her lawyer I would have given her the same advice.

Oh! You say that she also trademarked “I am Treyvon” and “Justice for Treyvon?” So? It was her son. Now she feels she has a cause. Perfectly understandable. Are you going to tell her that she cannot use her son’s name in promoting her cause?

Boortz says things that aren't going to make either "side" happy, but maybe the answer is that there shouldn't be sides.