And by “selectively editing,” I mean it in the most disgustingly partisan and biased manner.
The NBC segment in question featured anchor Ron Allen and ran on the Today show on Tuesday. On Thursday, Sean Hannity and guest Brent Bozell played the NBC version of the 911 call and compared it with the unedited version.
In the NBC segment, Zimmerman says: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”
The full version, though, unfolds like this:
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.”
911 operator: “Okay. And this guy, is he white black or Hispanic?”
Zimmerman: “He looks black.”
After playing both versions, Hannity said: “They forgot the dispatcher’s question! How could NBC, in good conscience, do that?”
The answer to Mr. Hannity’s question is simple. NBC doesn’t have a “good conscience” or a “bad conscience.” They have no conscience at all. Perhaps they wanted to start a race riot thinking it would be good for ratings?
MSNBC regularly accuses Fox of being biased – despite their own deliberate and open leftward slant on the news. Perhaps now we can dispense with the fantasy that NBC and their cable network are responsible, level headed journalists. By editing the Zimmerman 911 call, they created news out of whole cloth. Whether or not it was designed to inflame race hatred is not the point as much as whatever small amount of credibility they possessed is now history.
The brass is going to look into the story, but if you expect anything other than a white wash, I’ve got a drawbridge over the Chicago River I’d like to sell you.