When it comes to the sins committed by the mainstream media in their 18-month crusade to accomplish a media-lynching of George Zimmerman, we have seen countless new lows in an ocean of lows (including ABC News — more on that below). Thanks to our own reporting and Slate’s William Saletan, we appear to have found another low — this time in the questionable editing of an ABC News interview with Zimmerman juror B29.
Juror B29, or Maddy, made big news this week after her “Good Morning America” interview with Robin Roberts went viral. ABC News and the rest of the media loved that she declared Zimmerman a murderer, that she was the only minority juror, and that they could insinuate she had been bullied by five white jurors into an acquittal verdict.
The only problem, though, is that the editing of the interview appears to be too cute by half:
William Saletan at Slate points out that the unedited interview seems to show something different. Maddy actually hesitates twice when answering Roberts’ question which contains the statement “George Zimmerman got away with murder.” As Saletan points out “she looks as though she’s trying to reconcile the sentiment that’s been quoted to her–that Zimmerman ‘got away with murder’–with her own perspective. So she repeats the quote and adds words of her own, to convey what she thinks: that there’s a justice higher than the law, which Zimmerman will have to face “
I agree with Saletan’s take on this. Maddy appears to be offering a response to a statement that was presented to her.
You can watch the video here.
There is no question now that ABC News needs to release the full, unedited interview. There is also no question that if they refuse to, we have every right to believe they have something to hide. After all, this would not be the first time ABC has used video irresponsibly to falsely defame Zimmerman.
Early last year, as the tragic shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin was being manipulated into a national news story in order to galvanize Obama’s base in Florida, a state crucial to his re-election, ABC News was right there in the trenches with the rest.
On March 13, and with absolutely no evidence to back it up, the ABC reporter covering the story, Matt Gutman, tweeted out that Trayvon was shot “bc [because] he was black.” Gutman would also use Twitter to accuse Zimmerman of “stalking” Martin.
ABC News, however, was far from done doing its worst.
Just a couple weeks after Gutman’s tweets, for some indefensible reason, the network didn’t bother to perform the fairly simple act of enhancing surveillance video. This allowed ABC News to launch a “major scoop” that falsely claimed they had obtained video that proved Zimmerman was not injured on the night of the shooting.
Four days later, after simple enhancements showed lacerations on Zimmerman’s head, ABC was forced to retract its falsehood.
What ABC News and its reporter have already done to falsely smear, defame, and fabricate evidence against George Zimmerman puts everything they do related to this case under suspicion.
That definitely includes the interview with this juror.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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