Zimmerman Files Suit Against NBC

When any other sort of company screws up, that is part of its one-paragraph description forever. If the media writes about, say, Dow Corning, they'll mention the lawsuits against them over the allegedly unsafe silicone breast implant device. And so on.

For some crazy reason, that never seems to happen with the media, huh? Even their natural competitors, other media outlets, observe the Rules of the Cartel and never mention each other's legal problems in later capsule mentions of each other. This Washington Post piece doesn't note the fact that NBC rigged cars to blow up for a Dateline special. And it discusses the suit in terms of humorous derision.

Zimmerman thus didn’t volunteer a racial profile of Martin; he was asked to provide it, a point that the lawsuit makes in colorful fashion: “NBC created this false and defamatory misimpression using the oldest form of yellow journalism: manipulating Zimmerman’s own words, splicing together disparate parts of the recording to create illusions of statements that Zimmerman never actually made.”

...

Following a public uproar over the tape-doctoring, NBC News issued a statement on the matter saying this: “During our investigation it became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret. We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers.”

Such contrition didn’t impress the Zimmerman camp. “Only after the 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.” Zimmerman himself never received an apology from the defendants, according to the suit.

The suit doesn’t specify a dollar amount of damages that Zimmerman is seeking. “That’s showmanship,” says James Beasley, the Philadelphia-based lawyer representing Zimmerman in the suit.

It's so funny to think that citizens can hold media organizations accountable for their malicious slanders. What sillyheads! All this "showmanship" and "colorful" filings! Why this man must be some sort of crazy Tea Partier.

And also, a racist.

posted by Ace at 10:21 AM

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