NBC fires producer over edited Zimmerman 911 call

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/nbc-fires-producer-over-edited-zimmerman-911-call-201124740.html

Wendy Carpenter | The Upshot – 8 hrs ago

NBC fires producer over edited Zimmerman 911 call

A producer for NBC News has been fired for editing a recording of George Zimmerman's call to police the night he fatally shot Trayvon Martin.

The New York Times is reporting that "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."

The dismissal of the Miami-based producer, whose name has not been publicized, followed an internal investigation by NBC, which led to the network apologizing earlier this week for having aired the deceptive audio.

The recording aired on NBC's "Today" show on March 27, when the audio viewers heard suggested that Zimmerman volunteered to police, without provocation, that Martin was black: "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black."

But the tape had been edited, and the portion where the 911 dispatcher specifically asks Zimmerman if the person in question was "black, white or Hispanic," was deleted.

The conversation that actually occurred between the dispatcher and Zimmerman is as follows:

"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?" To which Zimmerman replied, "He looks black."

After that phone call on the night of Feb. 26, Zimmerman fatally shot Martin. The 17-year-old Martin was unarmed, and Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., told police he fired in self-defense after Martin attacked him.

[Related: Did Zimmerman say 'punks' or racial slur in 911 recording? ]

Since then, it has been debated if Zimmerman was racially profiling the teenager, a notion the edited version of the tape reinforces.

The Times reports that NewsBusters, a conservative media monitoring group, first reported NBC's discrepancy on March 30. The following day, NBC told The Washington Post that it would investigate. On Tuesday, NBC said in a statement that its investigation turned up "an error made in the production process that we deeply regret." The network promised that "necessary steps" would be taken "to prevent this from happening in the future" and NBC apologized to viewers.

No steps were specified, but the New York Times reports that the next day "a Miami-based producer who had worked at NBC for several years" was fired, and "people with direct knowledge of the firing characterized the misleading edit as a mistake, not a purposeful act."

[Related: George Zimmerman video shows injury to back of his head ]

On Thursday, Reuters cited an unnamed NBC executive saying "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."

Staff members at NBC News, who had been working on the Trayvon Martin story for weeks in Florida, were initially "in shock" over the altered tape, and later furious, another source told Reuters.

Reuters also reports that "NBC News executives interviewed more than half a dozen employees during their investigation."

On Saturday, the "Today" portion of MSNBC's Web site posted a Reuter's story on the producer's firing.

[X Factor 1,110]

Someone had to pay the price for this outrageous blunder

[Laveau 67]

Thanks for posting this link.

[TBoneTX 43,058]

Does anyone REALLY believe that the edit was inadvertent?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

Does anyone REALLY believe that the edit was inadvertent?

[james&olya 1,121]

Does anyone REALLY believe that the edit was inadvertent?

Of course it had to be inadvertent! Our media would NEVER embellish anything to raise their ratings and increase the revenue they get from advertisers!

Reminds me a little of that Nixon watergate tape thing with over 18 minutes missing! I still wonder what was so horrible it had to be removed considering how damning what was left in!

[Danno 1,228]

Since Zimmermans pic is plastered everywhere with false claims, why don't they post this persons pic as well?

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

http://news.yahoo.com/trayvon-martin-call-mistake-not-deliberate-nbc-114515858.html

Trayvon Martin call was "mistake, not deliberate": NBC

By Chris Francescani | Reuters – 4 hrs ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - NBC News' decision to air an edited call from George Zimmerman to police in the moments before he shot Trayvon Martin was "a mistake and not a deliberate act to misrepresent the phone call," according to the president of the network's news division.

The edit in question, which aired on the network's flagship "Today" morning show last week, made it appear that Zimmerman told police that Martin was black without being prompted, when, in fact, the full tape reveals that the neighborhood watch captain only did so when responding to a question posed by a dispatcher.

Under growing public pressure to explain the incident, NBC News President Steve Capus provided Reuters with the fullest explanation to date of how the edited call made it on air and what the network is doing to prevent such a consequential error from happening again.

Capus confirmed a previous Reuters report that an internal network investigation had determined that a producer made the editing error, and that the network's editorial controls - including senior broadcast producer oversight, script editors and often legal and standards department reviews of sensitive material to be broadcast - simply missed the selective editing of the phone call.

Two sources at the network told Reuters the Miami-based producer of the segment had been fired on Thursday.

Capus said "several people" involved were disciplined, though he declined to specify the nature of the disciplinary actions, saying they were internal personnel matters.

Sources at the network told Reuters on Thursday that NBC News executives did not know the emergency call was misleadingly edited until news reports surfaced days later on blogs including newsbusters.org and Breitbart.com.

Those blogs, along with media critics and rival networks, have charged that the edited call has inflamed racial tensions in an already volatile situation.

Sources inside the network have told Reuters that NBC News brass interviewed more than a dozen staffers during its investigation of the matter.

As part of the investigation, the producer who edited the call was questioned extensively about motivation, and it was determined that the person had cut the video clip down to meet a maximum time requirement for the length of the segment - a common pressure in morning television - and inadvertently edited the call in a way that proved misleading.

NBC News has apologized for the incident, saying in a statement to Reuters earlier this week that there was "an editing error in the production process," but insisting the results of the internal investigation would not be announced publicly.

Capus said that the network "takes its responsibility seriously" and has undertaken rigorous efforts to formalize the editorial safeguards in place at the network. He said that NBC News' broadcast standards department, led by David McCormick, has been holding meetings with various NBC News shows, as well as the network's specialized units, which handle sometimes complicated subjects like medical or legal news.

Capus added that he also is holding meetings among the network executives to reinforce the lessons learned from the investigation into the edited call.

SHARPTON CONTROVERSY

Capus has also worked in recent days to quell both external and internal criticism over the network's coverage of the highly charged news story - most of it focused on the central role that civil rights activist and MSNBC talk show host Reverend Al Sharpton has played in the case.

Sharpton, who hosts MSNBC's "Politics Daily" and offers regular commentary on the case, has also served as an advocate for the Martin family by leading rallies demanding Zimmerman's arrest, appearing beside Martin's anguished parents, and conducting closed door meetings with prosecutors and local officials on the Martin family's behalf. A call to Sharpton for comment Saturday was not returned.

Externally, media critics including Howard Kurtz, host of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and a columnist for The Daily Beast, have criticized the network for allowing Sharpton to play a dual role as both activist and commentator.

"Even commentators have to abide by certain rules," Kurtz wrote last month. "And in this case, by playing both sides of the camera, Rev. Al has obliterated them."

Internally, some NBC news staffers have complained that Sharpton's unique role in the case has compounded the damage to NBC News' reputation that the edited tape caused, and contributed to an impression among its critics that the network as a whole is biased against Zimmerman, according to sources. Capus refuted that claim.

"Reverend Sharpton is a talk show host on MSNBC," Capus said. "We believe there's a distinction between the role he plays and our front line journalists who are part of NBC's news gathering and reporting. This is a large news organization that has many people involved in any number of different aspects of coverage and commentary. That's the distinction we've made as a news organization."

MSNBC chief executive Phil Griffin has defended Sharpton's dual role as well, saying that as long as the longtime civil rights activist is upfront about his advocacy activity, he would be allowed on a "case by case basis" to both participate in and comment for MSNBC on issues and stories that interest him. Griffin has credited Sharpton with turning the Martin case into a national news story.

NBC is owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.

(This story corrects paragraph 4 and 5 to change attribution of producer being fired to two sources. Capus did not confirm the producer was fired)

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Does anyone REALLY believe that the edit was inadvertent?

Yes. Coincidentally (or maybe not) they also believe global warming is man made and the changes to the tape were not.

[Leatherneck 693]

Someone had to pay the price for this outrageous blunder

NBC - it was no blunder. The same network that is the parent company of MSNBC - yeah, the folks that hired that professional race hustler Al "Not So" Sharpton. That's how they roll.

[Bad_Daddy 2,209]

NBC - it was no blunder. The same network that is the parent company of MSNBC - yeah, the folks that hired that professional race hustler Al "Not So" Sharpton. That's how they roll.

[Leatherneck 693]

That network is so out-of-the-closet, they don't even pretend to offer unbiased news.

They would not be walking it back, had they not gotten called on it.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

That network is so out-of-the-closet, they don't even pretend to offer unbiased news.

They would not be walking it back, had they not gotten called on it.

The thing that seriously concerns me is that there are people, still, that think they can get away with this. Are they not paying attention? 200+ million people connected to the internet? YouTube? Cell phone cameras? Who thought they could get away with this? Did they really? Or were they trying to embarrasss NBC? Was it a set up like with Dan Rather?

These people are either so arrogant they think no one will catch them at their game OR they are so stupid and focused on their political agenda they can be fed anything to make the "right" look bad and they will run with it before checking it out. Dan Rather was just stupid. This? I don't know. They SAY they altered the tapes themselves but that may be better than saying "someone gave this to us and we played it without checking on it" Better to lay it on some "rogue" employee. One thing we DO know. NBC lies when it fits their agenda.

[Leatherneck 693]

The thing that seriously concerns me is that there are people, still, that think they can get away with this. Are they not paying attention? 200+ million people connected to the internet? YouTube? Cell phone cameras? Who thought they could get away with this? Did they really? Or were they trying to embarrasss NBC? Was it a set up like with Dan Rather?

These people are either so arrogant they think no one will catch them at their game OR they are so stupid and focused on their political agenda they can be fed anything to make the "right" look bad and they will run with it before checking it out. Dan Rather was just stupid. This? I don't know. They SAY they altered the tapes themselves but that may be better than saying "someone gave this to us and we played it without checking on it" Better to lay it on some "rogue" employee. One thing we DO know. NBC lies when it fits their agenda.

It's both - those in the news media have always had an elitist attitude. They have not quite wrapped their heads around the concept of average folks sourcing information from outlets that don't include them. For example - it was blogs that got out in front of this and outed NBC. Their days of having a monopoly on news and information are long gone - they need to remain relevant somehow, even if it means distorting the facts associated with a story.

I mean, look at the quote below from the article - does the president of NBC News really think people will buy that load of horse shiz!

"Capus confirmed a previous Reuters report that an internal network investigation had determined that a producer made the editing error, and that the network's editorial controls - including senior broadcast producer oversight, script editors and often legal and standards department reviews of sensitive material to be broadcast - simply missed the selective editing of the phone call."

[luckytxn 2,263]

Does anyone REALLY believe that the edit was inadvertent?

No. It was edited to show the point of view of the editor. The editor could have done it on the wishes of his higher ups but they fired him.