NBC News has apologized, sort of, for an artful piece of audio editing that underscores just how inflammatory press coverage of the Trayvon Martin case has become.
The network aired a tape of the 911 call George Zimmerman made moments before he fatally shot the 17-year-old Martin.
The version played by NBC had Zimmerman telling a dispatcher: “The guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”
That would seem like pretty damning evidence of racist intent.
But the full, unedited tape shows Zimmerman making no reference to Martin’s ethnicity until he’s specifically asked: “Is he white, black or Hispanic?”
Which constitutes pretty damning evidence of willful misconduct by NBC News.
Naturally, the network didn’t admit as much. Its statement merely cited “an error made in the production process that we deeply regret.”
An apology was tendered to viewers — but not to Zimmerman.
(The New York Times, not surprisingly, used virtually the same disingenuously edited version of the 911 transcript the other day in a lengthy article on the case.)
There’s much blame to be shared for the atrocious manner in which officials have handled this case from the outset.
Evidence — if it can fairly be called that — has been leaked in dribs and drabs, with the nation left with no notion of what the truth really is.
And, as noted above, malicious intent has been manifest.
Consider ABC News, which first aired, with great fanfare, a police tape it said clearly showed that Zimmerman was unhurt the night of the shooting — only to release an “enhanced” version days later that indeed showed injuries clearly consistent with a fight with somebody, if not Martin.
Veteran demagogue Al Sharpton is playing his part — holding rallies for “justice” that go hand-in-hand with promotion of his TV show.
But, again, the nation is no closer to knowing for sure whether Trayvon Martin was an innocent victim of a racist vigilante or was shot in self-defense by a neighborhood patrol captain who’d been attacked — or whether the entire episode was simply the result of a tragic misunderstanding.
Even President Obama felt the need to weigh in, with remarks that did little but help fan the flames.
We don’t pretend to have a ready answer. Florida officials maintain their investigation will be thorough and independent, but that remains to be seen.
Even so, it’ll likely be too little, too late.
Opinions have formed and hardened, and expectations are running high.
If further violence ensues, blame will attach to the usual suspects — Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et al. — but also to the appalling negligence, if not outright duplicity, that has marked national press coverage from the beginning.