Earlier this week I ripped The Hollywood Reporter for burying Spike Lee’s re-tweet of what the director/activist then thought was the home address of George Zimmerman, the alleged shooter of Trayvon Martin.
Yesterday, THR‘s Paul Bond published two comprehensive pieces about the incident, here’s an excerpt from the second:
“Maybe we should get a lawyer and send a cease and desist letter to Spike Lee.”
Those are the sentiments of Elaine McClain, the Florida woman who lives at the address the filmmaker retweeted over the weekend as being the residence of George Zimmerman, the man who killed teenager Trayvon Martin.
The Smoking Gun sought out McClain late Tuesday after word spread that the address Lee and others had spread throughout the Internet was erroneous. The Web site also posted property records indicating that McClain is the owner of the Sanford, Fla. home, assessment value: $87,224.
McClain, 70, has lived at the house with her husband, David McClain, 72, for about 10 years.
According to the Smoking Gun, the elderly couple has been living in fear since Lee tweeted their address as belonging to Zimmerman, whom some activists are accusing of being a racially motivated killer. The couple “took flight last Friday” after Lee’s retweet, according to the Smoking Gun.
This is not only a story almost all of the entertainment media has chosen to ignore, but as someone who checks the wires (AP, Reuters, etc.) at least 10 times a day, I haven’t seen it there either.
The same media culture that went nuts over Rush Limbaugh referring to a public figure as a “slut” (even after he apologized), seems to find Lee’s fueling of the mob mentality toward George Zimmerman only worthy of … a cover up.
Good for THR.