CBS portrays the Zimmerman-Martin shooting: Revisited

As anyone who has glanced at this blog knows, I’ve been attempting to get a clear and unqualified answer as to who exactly it was that produced the entirety of an egregiously, and perhaps maliciously, misleading video seen embedded in a March 7th 2012 Reuters report covering the Travon Martin death, and Martin’s parent’s quest to have George Zimmerman arrested.

As we know already, the video report contained graphic animation material showing a figure identified as George Zimmerman shooting down a figure – portrayed as  a child dressed in short pants while  holding candy in his hand – identified as Trayvon Martin, from a distance.

Although the voice-over makes reference to neighbors reporting a fight, the video does nothing to suggest the shooting was anything other than a cold-blooded murder. In fact the CBS News graphic animation positively does suggest that that is precisely what the shooting of Trayvon Martin was: a cold-blooded murder.

As you can see in the screen capture above, just taken from one of the CBS sites still playing the piece, there is no question that the material presented on Reuters in March of 2012 and via Yahoo into at least May of 2012, was in fact all CBS editor approved content taken from the March 8th 2012 “CBS This Morning” show. I was obviously wasting my time trying to get CBS to explain anything directly. An introductory scene screen capture below, as well as the one above,  clearly establishes the video’s provenance.

Here is an excerpt of the “shooting” as portrayed by CBS News, which is up on YouTube

And here is one of the CBS links I discovered still operating, wherein the entire story, in all of its misleading glory, can be seen.

http://www.cbs.com/shows/cbs_this_morning/video/2207568197/parents-ask-why-son-s-admitted-killer-is-free

It is much too late for CBS News to apologize to anyone now. The damage they have done to George Zimmerman’s life with the reckless propagation of their false images obviously cannot be undone.

What they have done to our trust in each other as responsible well-meaning fellow citizens,  and to the principle that one is entitled to a presumption of legal  innocence, is likewise irreparable; in the short term at least.

And not to be overlooked is what CBS News has done to our hopes that at least some of the specially protected institutions of civil society which are imagined to safeguard our liberties, rather than slander and diminish them, will live up to, or at least try to live up to, their social charters.

It’s entirely too late for CBS to rectify the damage they have done to themselves, and to us, by this and by like instances we can all remember, of irresponsible, and frankly dishonorable, reportage.

Let’s hope in fact, that CBS News never does take the piece down; never corrects, never apologizes, never supplements.

Let this CBS News report remain on line forever as the shabby and pathetic monument to the notion of CBS News’ credibility that it is.

“CBS News. Experience You Can Trust.”

Or so they once supposedly said.

The Zimmerman-Martin news reporting fiasco.

Back in May of 2012, Yahoo had a web page up featuring a Reuters news story on the Martin family’s search for answers as it was being called at that time, and their desire that George Zimmerman be subjected to arrest.

Embedded in the web page was a video which featured a CBS This Morning logo in the lower left corner. As the video played, a computer graphic ran which depicted a child-like Trayvon Martin being gunned down at a distance by what is clearly meant to be George Zimmerman.

Here is the image once again,

Zimmerman portrayed as shooting Martin down at a distance

Because I wanted to be in legal possession of the video, in addition to the fair use example of a screen capture depicted here,  I wrote to CBS news and asked for a copy of it.

I included the following image so as to aid in the identification of the video:

Logo

CBS News has kindly written back and stated, albeit in somewhat colloquial terms,  that the image and the video “belong” to Reuters.

I immediately wrote back requesting clarification, to find that the person responding had left the office for some days.

Until I am informed or discover otherwise, I shall assume that CBS means not only, and narrowly, that Reuters has legal title to the video, but that the content and construction was completely Reuter’s as well.

I, like most of us, would be pleased to find that CBS had not in fact created the egregiously misleading computer generation, and that someone else had misleadingly melded their content with it without their foreknowledge or approval.

The record here has been corrected to reflect this supposition.

This of course leaves open the question as to how and why the CBS logo appears on “the Reuters video”.

The Yahoo page which bore the content, has been completely reconfigured, unlike some contemporaneous Yahoo news pages still available in unaltered form, and now contains no trace of the video, or its ever having been there.

Where did the video go, and whose was it?

How Trayvon Martin was murdered by George Zimmerman …

UPDATE.  The following changes illustrated by the strikeouts have been made out of a respect for accuracy and fairness, something we, especially those on my side of the Martin-Zimmerman news reporting fiasco issue should be highly mindful of  – even if the attempt to be accurate and fair seems to fly in the face of what seems to be self-evident: i.e., in this case the “CBS This Morning” logo. See the latest posting on this matter.

Second update. It appears that our scrupulosity was was uncalled for.

CBS News was in fact responsible for the computer generated video insert in their report which portrayed George Zimmerman shooting down an non-aggressive and child-like Trayvon Martin (dressed in short pants) from a distance .  CBS, through one of their employees had denied that the video, or the segment, “belonged”  to them, but rather to Reuters,  whatever “belonged” was supposed to mean in their usage. I was never able to clarify it with them, and and continued attempts to do so became pointless in the face of the evidence, still available, that it was they who had in fact had published the recklessly misleading and prejudicial account of the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

 

 

 

According to CBS News … Or, maybe not CBS, but Reuters ….

This is John’s blog, so I hesitate to  quote commenter Eric on another blog accurately if vulgarly referring to leftists as being lower than snake shit.

But frankly, how could anyone deny it? How could anyone who as been watching the lead-up to the Zimmerman trial possibly argue that they, the members of the mainstream, left-leaning, almost completely populated by Democrats media,  have any interest in presenting an accurate recounting of facts?

Time after time, they persistently demonstrate they have no such  interest in getting the details right, and that they will elide, insinuate, and even deceptively edit the record for effect; as  NBC News did with the police department recording of Zimmerman speaking to the Sanford Police Department dispatcher.

Exactness, or even accuracy and truth mean nothing to them when their narrative is at stake.

They won’t even get the petty details correct for fear that exposing these details might redound negatively upon the story line they are attempting to push.

Over at the Huffington Post for example, with the trial over and while they are covering the verdict wrap-up, they are still saying Trayvon bought an “iced tea”. Whether they never paid close enough attention to the police photos to notice what it was Martin actually bought, or whether they are sensitive to either a potential racial stereotyping of the purchase, or the possible drug use implications of what it was that he did buy, in each and/or any event, they are perpetrating a fraud on those readers seeking objective information, and a truthful recounting.

“Objective and truthful”: That would be a recounting on which civil peace and other human lives might even depend.

Below is another example of the journalistic malpractice that has gone on during this case. It is illustrated by a screen capture I managed to make some months ago, and which I recently had to do a computer file search on,  in order to find again.

This is the same screen capture I had mentioned in an earlier posting as not being ready to hand.

This looked to be is taken from a “CBS This Morning” computer animation of the shooting which was Reuters apparently allowed to be re-presented on Yahoo:

Zimmerman portrayed as shooting Martin down at a distance

Look what’s being shown here for God’s sake: Zimmerman, gunning down a kid in short pants from yards away. No wonder the low information types went out of their minds.

And here is a capture of the web address …

Yahoo presentation of the CBS video

And this is a close up of the logo,

Logo

And here is the link: news.yahoo.com/family-florida-boy-killed-neighborhood-watch-seeks-arrest-044537742.html

Try it for yourself, and see what you come up with.

So now, what do we have here? We have as everyone already knows,  a clear pattern of the news media attempting to inflame passions and railroad a verdict with a grave indifference to the false narrative they were constructing. It may have been motivated by ideology in some cases, racial animus in others, or a “mere” desire to profit from whatever outrage and attention could be stimulated or provoked in others.

What possible excuse though could these sub-moral creatures offer up for their behavior?

Well, my experiences in dealing with the type convince me that their nihilism is so deep that they are indifferent to the harm they might wreak, and the very idea of excusing their behavior would seem as alien to them as considering it within a framework of “right and wrong” in the first place.

That, is what we are dealing with folks. We need to remember that always. As if we could ever forget, that is.

Department of Injustice Joins Anti-Zimmerman Protests Before Trial – And Here We’ve Been Taught Justice Is Blind. Fooled Again.

In the United States, Justice is supposed to be BLIND. It should be in Ideal Cases that the Courts deliver a fair and just trial to be judged by a Judge, or a Jury of the defendant’s peers. The Justice Department for its symbol has the scales of justice to be equal and blind. Or as Sgt. Friday would say, just the facts, ma’am, just the facts. As said, in all trials this is the ideal, but we know “things happen” and if severe enough, a mistrial happens. This is a statue representing Blind Justice:

However, our present Department of Injustice has forgotten this. It started its tenure in 2009 by dismissing a guilty plea by persons obstructing the voting process. We see the myriad of scandals with NSA, IRS, and others. Most of this is being done by Omission, than Commission. Or, don’t say anything and it may disappear. But with the George Zimmerman trial Withholder’s Department of Injustice has sunk to another new low in that they campaigned and spent TAX DOLLARS to vilify the Defendant, Zimmerman. See below. This is how Justice Feels now. In Shame.

Newly Released Documents Detail the Department of Justice’s Role in Organizing Trayvon Martin Protests
DOJ deployed obscure section to play role in Florida protests.
July 10, 2013 – 9:29 am

Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents proving that the Department of Justice played a major behind-the-scenes role in organizing protests against George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is on trial for second-degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the DOJ on April 24, 2012. According to the documents JW received, a little-known DOJ unit called the Community Relations Service deployed to Sanford, FL, to organize and manage rallies against Zimmerman.

Among JW’s findings:

March 25 – 27, 2012, CRS spent $674.14 upon being “deployed to Sanford, FL to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.”

March 25 – 28, 2012, CRS spent $1,142.84 “in Sanford, FL to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.”

March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent $892.55 in Sanford, FL “to provide support for protest deployment in Florida.”

March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent an additional $751.60 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance to the City of Sanford, event organizers, and law enforcement agencies for the march and rally on March 31.”

April 3 – 12, 2012, CRS spent $1,307.40 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance, conciliation, and onsite mediation during demonstrations planned in Sanford.”

April 11-12, 2012, CRS spent $552.35 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance for the preparation of possible marches and rallies related to the fatal shooting of a 17 year old African American male.” – expenses for employees to travel, eat, sleep?
JW says the documents it obtained reveal that CRS is not engaging in its stated mission of conducting “impartial mediation practices and conflict resolution,” but instead engaged on the side of the anti-Zimmerman protesters.

More here:

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/07/10/newly-released-documents-detail-the-department-of-justices-role-in-organizing-trayvon-martin-protests/?fb_action_ids=10201363392397216&fb_action_types=og.recommends&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%7B%2210201363392397216%22%3A505767429492108%7D&action_type_map=%7B%2210201363392397216%22%3A%22og.recommends%22%7D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

This Just In – Seventy-two killed resisting gun confiscation in Boston!

This may sound a little familiar. It just happened in Canada. But not the killing.

Seventy-two killed resisting gun confiscation in Boston!

Boston – National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement.

Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the group’s organizers as “criminals,” issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government’s efforts to secure law and order.

The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed wide-spread refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.

Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting in early this month between government and military leaders at which the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.

One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that “none of these people would have been killed had the extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily.”

Read it all here:
http://fauquierfreecitizen.com/seventy-two-killed-resisting-gun-confiscation-in-boston/

Zimmerman – Martin: Just as I predicted

I had intended to post this up Friday last but didn’t get to it, because the network graphic  I had captured (depicting a pursuing Zimmerman shooting Trayvon at a distance) months ago wasn’t handy, and an area-wide power outage cut the entire effort short.

So, this commentary is much less topical than it was a couple of days past. Nonetheless:

As I had predicted many months ago, when the facts of the matter were still uncertain: the question in the Zimmerman case would likely evolve into a question as to whether Zimmerman,  if he was the victim of an unjustified physical assault – and we do not absolutely yet know that to be the case – even had the right to defend himself against a battery by responding with deadly force.

There’s no doubt George Zimmerman was getting a whuppin …

Those who have had their attention drawn to the case will no doubt have noticed the changing nature of the claims of the “let’s hang Zimmerman” crowd.

As the news dribbled out we’ve gone from network news graphics depicting Zimmerman poised at a distance while shooting a child-like Trayvon after he had supposedly chased Trayvon into a corner; to a subsequent insistence that while Zimmerman may have been in a “scuffle” he had suffered no physical injuries; to a now new  theory suggested by the bald headed fellow pictured above : i.e.,  you have the obligation under certain circumstances to take an unjustifiable beating.

A beating or “whupping'” in the affected language of the effete clown in the suspenders, that would leave you like this:

ZIMMERMAN, AFTER ENCOUNTERING TRAYVON MARTIN

As I wrote over a year ago on First Street Journal,

“March 28, 2012 at 15:42

Oh, one last thing that despite all of my commentary, I have not yet mentioned.

In my dealings with progressives and lefties, for all of their hyperbole about what they conceive of as rights, for all their willingness to engage in political violence, for all their talk of resisting injustice and fighting for the right of peoples or for justice or for whatever, they seem to nonetheless believe that it is your moral obligation to take a beating, or suffer a rape, rather than kill the offender.

When it comes down to it, if everything that could conceivably be exculpatory for Zimmerman is proved to be true, (and I don’t imagine it will) and if he did nothing whatsoever to provoke Trayvon into a physical assault, and if it is shown that he was having his head pounded against the pavement at the very moment he shot Trayvon, there will still be many on the left that will say it was unjustified.

An essential characteristic of the leftist organism is their different sense of personal boundaries.

Well, we’ll see how it plays out.”

Well, we are now seeing just how it is in fact playing out. And it is just as I predicted.

Legal Insurrection has this, on the actual theory being developed by the prosecution,  the courtroom deployment of which seems to have been waiting in the wings.

UPDATE

In an effort to explain the image I had in mind as I responded to Yorkshire, I am adding the marked up picture below.

If anyone has an updated trial based map which is properly scaled and refers to an uncontested version of the respective parties’ movements,  they are welcome to suggest it, and I will happily remove this one.

Until such a time then …

The red pointer shows the GPS location of the shooting, per the Wiki site. If the Wiki coordinates are accurate, the death location is less further down the condo access path toward the Green condo, than news accounts and graphics originally suggested; graphics which I had accepted.

The red star seems to be the agreed upon location of Brandy Green’s condominium.

The yellow circle represents a location that is both two doors down from Brandy Green’s condo (or townhouse) and between two buildings;  a spot which has been suggested as a place Trayvon had sought out to “escape” from Zimmerman’s view. That is to say, a place obscured between two buildings on the one hand, while being two doors away from home, on the other. (This construction of events is more or less per Rachel Jeantel’s statements,  and assumes she is telling the truth in this regard.)

The green circle is where Zimmerman, if he is telling the truth about his own movements, paused to turn and go back to his vehicle.

The rest is self-explanatory.  A 100 ft scale is found in the lower left corner of the image.

Get yourself a ruler if you need to.