Wednesday, April 4, 2012

NBC Apology - George Zimmerman

NBC has completed its "internal investigation" of its inexcusable editing of the George Zimmerman 911 call.

The network issued an apology, a very inadequate apology.

From Erik Wemple, the Washington Post:

NBC has completed its investigation into the mishandling of the police dispatcher’s conversation with George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case. And the process ends with a finding of error, plus an apology. Here is the statement just issued by the network:
During our investigation it became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret. We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers.

As Wemple notes, the apology is directed to NBC's viewers, not George Zimmerman.

Yes, NBC owed its viewers an apology for deceiving them, but the network owes Zimmerman an apology for playing with the audio to create the impression that he's a racist.

There is no question that Zimmerman's words were distorted by NBC News. That's unacceptable. NBC should be giving its viewers the news, not spin, not lies.

Furthermore, the statement doesn't give any information on how NBC News allowed such a personally destructive manipulation of the truth to be broadcast.

An error was made. We all know that. NBC News should tell us how it happened. Tell us why it happened.

Bottom line: NBC needs to issue an apology for its apology.

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