As reported on Breitbart.com, MSNBC recently used ill-placed elipses to make George Zimmerman look racist. Reporting on a call that Zimmerman made about Trayvon Martin, MSNBC quoted Zimmeran as saying:
“This guy looks like he’s up to no good … he looks black,” Zimmerman told a police dispatcher from his car. His father has said that Zimmerman is Hispanic, grew up in a multiracial family, and is not racist.
Here's the entire transcript (with red text depicting what MSNBC left out):
Here's the entire transcript (with red text depicting what MSNBC left out):
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.
911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?
ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.
I would also point out that they should have changed the capital "H" in Zimmerman's response to "...[h]e looks black." to signify that they had changed the entire structure of the sentence. That is journalism 101...who are these people?
Well, I think they missed an opportunity here and I blame it on a serious lack of creativity. Here are some examples of what they could have done to really make Zimmerman look racist:
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...black."
ZIMMERMAN: "This guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's... black."
ZIMMERMAN: "This guy looks like he's up to no good...he's on drugs...he's...black."
ZIMMERMAN: "This guy...'s up to no good...on drugs...he's just...black."
ZIMMERMAN: "This guy...he's...no good... he's...black."
As you can see, MSNBC missed a huge opportunity here. It's not like anyone respects their journalistic integrity (have they any?) so they might as well go for the Gold.
