The Patriot Post® · Network News Shapers

NBC has an ongoing “omissions” problem. The latest scandal involving the network centers around its selective editing of the taped conversation between George Zimmerman and the 911 operator on the night when Zimmerman allegedly shot and killed Trayvon Martin. The unabridged tape of the conversation goes like this:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy-is he black, white or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

What did NBC actually presented on the “Today Show?”:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.

Now NBC is promising to “internally investigate” the incident.

Sure they will. And while they’re at it, perhaps they could release the results of their other internal investigation regarding their last omission problem, when they omitted the words “under G0d” – twice – from the Pledge of Allegiance during their broadcast of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Congressional Country Club last summer.

For the record, NBC omitted the phrase “under G0d, indivisible,” the first time, and cut the phrase, “one nation under G0d, indivisible” the second time. I say “for the record” because part of NBC’s internal investigation into that incident apparently included removing both tapes of their selective editing from YouTube where the message, “This video has been removed by the user” stands in place of both.

It is likely that most people aren’t familiar with editing audio files. Fortunately for those readers, your trusty columnist, having had a previous career in music composition using computer-based audio files, is. In both incidents, no accidents are possible. One must put an audio file up on a computer screen, scan it, find the particular section one wants to omit, and remove it. After that, the front end of the file must be attached to the remaining portion, which is then saved as new audio file.

It’s so easy a caveman – or a dedicated ideologue – could do it.

In the conventional corporate hierarchy, those who make such edits are engineers. And whatever an engineer does, it must be approved by a producer and, more often than not, also run by the corporate legal department for approval, to make sure that nothing being broadcast over the air could subject the network to potential litigation.

There are variations on this theme. An engineer could double as a producer, there could be multiple producers and/or assistant engineers, and legal may or may not be involved. But whatever the particular permutation, the number of people involved in either omission is relatively small. Moreover, a schedule of work assignments given to both producers and the engineers would make finding the guilty parties about as difficult as finding the sky above your head. According to various news sources, NBC promised to investigate this matter three days ago, by the time you read this. Since any genuine investigation would lead to the guilty parties in all of about half an hour, NBC is no longer working an an “internal investigation.”

They’re working on a “credible explanation,” aka a cover-up. And since we already know the last investigation yield nothing more than a typically leftist apology, which invariably ends with “we’d like to apologize to those of you who were offended by it” – as opposed to those who weren’t offended by it – we can expect a similar mea culpa, along with the likely removal of the current tape from as many websites as possible, this time around as well.

(Writer’s note: as it turns out, I was a prophet. After I wrote this, NBC did issue an apology, claiming the edited audio was “an error made in the production process that we deeply regret.” Furthermore, with respect to their so-called internal investigation, when asked if anyone lost their job or had been reassigned NBC replied thusly: “We will not be commenting on our course of action.”)

Since network news organizations are highly competitive, it wasn’t surprising that ABC News also attempted to gin up a bit of racism in this case as well. They offered America an “exclusive” video purporting to show that Zimmerman was uninjured in the exchange with Martin, even they planted a graphic over his head blocking the view of the critical area, while ABC News reporter Matt Gutman wrote that the “police surveillance video taken the night that Trayvon Martin was shot dead shows no blood or bruises on George Zimmerman.”

After the Daily Caller released a photo showing marks on Zimmerman’s head, this other bastion of journalistic integrity also attempted to walk the proverbial horse back into the proverbial barn. ABC claims it “re-digitized” the original video, while Gutman ate a heaping helping of corporate crow, noting the clearer video shows “what appear to be a pair of gashes or welts on George Zimmerman’s head.”

Again, if ABC had an ounce of interest in getting the story right – as opposed to releasing a race-baiting “exclusive” – they could have re-digitized the video before releasing it for public consumption. Once again, it strains corporate credibility to expect Americans to believe that no one in the video editing hierarchy noticed the same marks on Zimmerman’s head that were so easily identifiable in the still photo published by the Daily Caller. Thus, once again, it makes sense to assume that, somewhere in the bowels – or executive suites – of ABC’s “news” organization, ideology trumped integrity.

Here’s a thought. How about a couple of external investigations at both networks, as in publishing the names and the photos of those people in both organizations who consider making a mockery of news reporting a reasonable price to pay for preserving one’s ideological bent? Now that would be newsworthy. It might even mitigate some of the public’s ever-growing contempt for a profession whose raison d'etre is ostensibly to protect us from government abuse. Like the purposeful dissemination of mis-information, for example.

It might even be, to use the parlance that motivates our modern-day “news” organizations more than any other, a “ratings block-buster.”

Of course it will never happen, for a couple of reasons. First, neither network has an ounce of credibility left. NBC has spent the last few years shilling a “Green is Universal” campaign, confident that most of the public is unaware that the company is owned by General Electric, whose CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is Barack Obama’s jobs Czar, and that GE stands to make enormous profits off Chinese-made light bulbs necessitated by the 2007 Congressional ban on incandescent bulbs. ABC lost its credibility a long time ago, when a 1978 “20/20” story contended that Ford automobiles could explode when hit from behind. ABC based the segment on a UCLA test report – without mentioning that UCLA testers were attaching incendiary devices to the undercarriage of the vehicle shown exploding, in order to study how a crash fire affected the passenger compartment of a car.

Second, and just as important, both networks know a substantial portion of the public is ideologically aligned with the networks’ leftist slant, and if NBC and ABC go a little “overboard,” it’s OK, because that same segment of the population is absolutely certain that “Faux News” lies just as much and just as often. Thus, a little “balance for the cause” is perfectly reasonable.

The big picture for both networks? The same picture it’s been for the last three-plus years: promote, protect and defend Barack Obama whenever and wherever possible. And if it takes taking the closest thing they can find to a “racial” incident – hence the use of the ridiculously transparent term “white Hispanic,” courtesy another bastion of integrity, aka the New York Times – to energize black voter participation in the 2012 election, then the attempt to to racial-ize a story where no racism likely exists, is well worth the effort.

If such efforts continue to splatter factual egg all over ideological faces, much like the Duke University “rape” case? Who got fired, or even identified, for that round of media malpractice?

Perhaps yet another internal investigation is in order.