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TOP 10 EXCERPTS FROM ZIMMERMAN VS. NBC NEWS COMPLAINT
December 7, 2012
By: John Sexton
On Thursday, George Zimmerman filed suit against NBC News and three NBC producers he accuses of intentionally painting him as a racist. Zimmerman and his attorneys have now done what many in the new media only dream of doing, holding the major media responsible for their biased and misleading output.
The language in the complaint is blunt. It calls NBC's coverage "yellow journalism" and refers to "journalistic crimes." Most broadly, the complaint accuses NBC of trumping up a racism narrative for ratings, with a name check of the Today Show and Rev. Al Sharpton in particular. Here are some of the highlights or, if you prefer, the media's lowlights from the complaint:
1] NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain. Their goal was simple: keep their viewers alarmed, and thus always watching, by menacing them with a reprehensible series of imaginary and exaggerated racist claims.
2] NBC created this false and defamatory mis-impression using the oldest form of yellow journalism: manipulating Zimmerman's own words, splicing together disparate parts of the recording to create the illusion of statements that Zimmerman never actually made.
3] Defendants pounced on the Zimmerman/Martin matter because they knew this tragedy could be, with proper sensationalizing and manipulation, a racial poweder keg that could result in months, if not years, of topics for their failing news programs, particularly the plummeting ratings for their ailing Today Show.
4.The defendants media arson was ignited on March 19, 2012, when NBC and defendant [Jeff] Burside broadcast from Sanford, Florida the first manipulated audio of the call.
5.Defendants' improper juxtaposition of unrelated dialogue between Zimmerman and the dispatcher was specifically done to imply that Zimmerman had a racist motive.
6.Only after defendants' malicious acts were uncovered and exposed by other media outlets...did defendant NBC "apologize" and terminate some of those in its employ responsible for the yellow journalism identified in this Complaint.
(Excerpt)
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Top 10 Excerpts from Zimmerman vs. NBC News Complaint
