Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

Media guilty of crimes in Trayvon Martin case

There have been many people characterized as villains in the Trayvon Martin case, among them being: George Zimmerman, the Sanford Police Department and even the parents of Martin themselves, for allegedly attempting to commercialize their deceased son’s name.

However, there is one scoundrel that has so far slipped under the radar and must be called out for their offenses – the media.

As a public, we know very little in the way of hard facts about the case. Zimmerman may or may not have called for help. Martin may or may not have injured Zimmerman. Zimmerman may or may not have uttered a racial slur when chasing Martin.

The information we do know, however, comes primarily in the form of social media. That is a ruinous problem. A case cannot be made for or against Zimmerman in the form of 140 character trending topics or a Facebook status, no matter how many retweets or likes the message gets, but everyone from Al Sharpton to President Barack Obama himself seems to have already decided the fate of the nonexistent Zimmerman trial before it’s even begun. And it’s all the fault of the media, who have resorted to the condemned form of sensationalized reporting known as “yellow journalism.”

Butchered quotes, doctored audio and video cut to match the network’s bias have all been symptoms of the media’s frenzied obsession with gathering public attention for this case.

Of course, public attention needs to be given to this tragic, violent event that left a young boy dead, but purposefully deceiving to the public is absolutely not the way to do it. To mislead people about such a complicated crime is unfair to all parties involved in the case and frankly is a negative testament to what our news sources have become: button-pushing machines more focused on ratings than news.

For example, the Daily Caller carelessly attempted to paint a rather negative picture of Martin, who, although less-than-angelic, seemed to be a fairly typical, if rather troublesome, high-schooler, getting in trouble for marijuana, truancy and defacing school property. The conservative news site published 152 pages of what they claimed were Martin’s tweets in an effort to expose Martin’s dark side. There has been no confirmation from Martin’s friends or family that the tweets are indeed his, but if they are, they detail what appears to be a decidedly normal young boy’s daily life. The tweets don’t mention anything criminal, so it is unclear what the Daily Caller’s purpose was in uploading these tweets.

Furthermore, the same website published photos taken from the surveillance video of Zimmerman entering a police precinct. The video, which has thus far been one of the most crucial pieces of evidence in the case, shows Zimmerman apparently free of the head and nose injuries he claims to have received from Martin, but the Daily Caller enhanced the images from the video and Photoshopped arrows into the photo to draw attention to what may or may not be a scar or laceration on Zimmerman’s head.

There is no conclusive evidence that Zimmerman was indeed hurt, and enhancing and Photoshopping a picture to fuel the fire that Martin was a troublemaker and essentially asking for his fate is disgusting and reprehensibly sensationalistic.

Even the major companies Americans use as trusted sources of the news couldn’t resist fanning the flames. “The Today Show” aired a conversation between Zimmerman and a 911 dispatcher that occurred shortly before the shooting. In the audio aired by “The Today Show,” Zimmerman apparently said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

The actual conversation is far less incriminating for Zimmerman, at least of a hate crime or racial profiling. In reality, Zimmerman was merely responding to the dispatcher’s question of what race Martin was. According to the Washington Post, the true conversation reads:

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.”

Doctoring the audio to accuse Zimmerman of racial profiling is not only wrong, it’s a potentially libelous lie, and one that “The Today Show” should be ashamed of advertising.

In two more violent errors of judgment, the New Black Panthers Party has put a $10,000 bounty for the citizen’s arrest of Zimmerman and Spike Lee tweeted an innocent family’s address as Zimmerman’s. The only possible outcome of such statements is more violence, which is contradictory and doesn’t solve anything.

Even Obama has given his input by emphasizing the importance of taking “this with the seriousness it deserves and … [getting] to the bottom of what happened.” Obama knows just as much as the rest of us, which is very little. As Wallace Alcom of the Austin Daily Herald stated, “the man is not guilty because the president thinks he is.”The media tends to crucify defendants prematurely, and while it is unlikely that information will surface that will prove Zimmerman innocent, it is still foolish of the media to find someone guilty before he has even been arrested. Like it or not, innocent until proven guilty is the procedure America’s judicial system is based on. To feed the American public embellished news is a crime in and of itself.

Emily Merlino is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].

 

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  • อาเซน่อลไทยJun 29, 2013 at 1:33 pm

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  • S

    Spin the WheelApr 3, 2012 at 8:34 am

    Even worse is perhaps the ignorance that the media knee-jerked Zimmerman into being a white male regardless of his personal identity, which is a negative stereotype in itself. Sadly nobody seems to have stood up against this, which makes me wonder why racism isn’t explored towards all races but instead only takes a majority against minority-focus.

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    David Hunt '90Apr 3, 2012 at 5:47 am

    Bravo.

    If Zimmerman’s name were a more stereotypical “Rodriguez”, this story would not even be an issue. But it’s a way for the media to shill for the racialist pimps and paint America as an irredeemably racist society (try traveling overseas – you want REAL racism, try most European counties… my wife, a Kazakh, grew up in Russia and even as an adult was referred to as a “black ass” even by her colleages).

    More to the point, why not make a point of some of the other deaths. Read:

    British Tourists Killed for Being “Crackers” in Florida
    http://moonbattery.com/?p=9773

    Black Men Who Could Look Like Obama’s Son Arrested For Murder of White Mississippi State Student
    http://www.jammiewf.com/2012/black-men-who-could-look-like-obamas-son-arrested-for-murder-of-white-mississippi-state-student/

    Dozens of blacks have been killed – men, women, children – every day since this incident… yet NONE are raised to the national debate. Why? I suspect it’s the Left’s racism; they clearly don’t think blacks killing other blacks is really worthy of debate, because that’s the behavior they expect of blacks.

    Now, a “white” (not really) guy kills a black, well, THAT is news because the murder rate with a white offender is miniscule compared to the black offender rate. That’s making a judgment of expected behavior based on skin color – supporting my contention that Liberals are the racists.

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    Denise BrownApr 3, 2012 at 3:10 am

    [sigh] Finally. Finally. A voice of reason regarding the sensationalized aspect of this case.

    Some are lauding the “freedom of speech” and self-expression of a medium such as, Twitter, but it has been used in truly treacherous ways to initiate and perpetuate this rush to judgment.

    Add to the insanity that ensued on Twitter the way the American news media twisted and colored the *supposed* facts of the case, and we have the most bizarre perversion of “news” I have witnessed in my lifetime.

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  • I

    Ira GoldmanApr 3, 2012 at 2:38 am

    Uh-oh! Newly revealed social media pages show it was Trayvon Martin who was after George Zimmerman, not the other way around!! GAME OVER!

    http://networkedblogs.com/vMvvz

    Reply
  • 3

    333maxwellApr 3, 2012 at 2:25 am

    For anyone that is interested….
    I am an audio guy..

    I took the 911 call with the most audio informatiion regarding screams, compressed it, ran it at half speed and pitch corected it 100 percent.. even though it runs slower (just a tenth over half speed) anyone with an ear for music can tell not a note has been changed.. Digital affords you this luxury. In the analog days we had to physically slow the tape/medium down and you lose pitch and clarity.

    Anyway, what I find most interesting is the ghastly scream at about 1:12 right after the final shot.\
    THIS AUDIO IS NOT ENHANCED per sey.. not like enhancing a photo.. the only enhancing has been to adust volume levels so you don’t hurt your ear listening to everything at relative volume levels.

    There are a few swirling artifacts in this copy because I had to compres the wav file to a 128 kbps mp3 to fit on my page so you had a player to hear it on.. These artifacts are slight and will not distract.

    The 911 call as you have never heard it before, draw your own conclusions. Listen for the scream after the shot.

    http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11548279

    Again, draw your own conclusions, I am not here to change any minds tonight. This exercise is just a way to access the call and hear things you would not of just listening to the raw recording.

    Reply