Race-Baiting Media on the Hook For Any Post-Zimmerman Violence

A Letter From L. Brent Bozell III
Founder and President
Media Research Center

The liberal media conducted a vicious, months-long campaign of divisive race-baiting that smeared George Zimmerman as a racist and now they are fueling the racial turmoil in the wake of his acquittal. Here are just a few examples of race-baiting in the months prior to the trial:

• For a full week in March 2012, NBC News ran audio tape of George Zimmerman’s 911 call before the shooting – that tape is now the subject of a defamation lawsuit against NBC for its allegedly deceptive editing to make Zimmerman sound racist.
• The AP, CBS, MSNBC and other outlets erroneously reported that Zimmerman was white, and eventually The New York Times and Reuters decided he was “white Hispanic.”
• NBC employee and MSNBC host Al Sharpton agitated on- and off-air, demanding Zimmerman’s arrest.
•  On March 21, 2012, Sharpton’s colleague Joe Scarborough called Zimmerman a “murderer,” and “the man who murdered Trayvon Martin.”
• Slate.com suggested that Zimmerman killed Martin due to something called the “racial empathy gap.”

Now, with the verdict in and Zimmerman acquitted, the media continue their race-baiting narrative:

• Immediately after the verdict was read, an AP reporter tweeted “So we can all kill teenagers now? Just checking.”
• On July 14, writing for POLITICO, Scarborough doubled down, saying that it is "my belief that George Zimmerman is a racist idiot who chased an unarmed teenager through a neighborhood for little reason more than he was a black man wearing a hoodie."
• Also on July 14, CNN’s Candy Crowley asked Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, “Do you think the American justice system is innately racist?”
•  On July 15, on NBC’s “Today,” anchor Savannah Guthrie wondered whether there hadn’t been enough race in the trial, asking Sharpton, “Do you think the prosecutors missed an opportunity there, that they didn't explicitly make this case about racial profiling?”

The race-baiting media owe George Zimmerman an apology. A jury of his peers has spoken. Zimmerman was acquitted, and that’s that. Any continuation of the media’s unrelenting, divisive, hate-mongering coverage is an absolute disgrace.

Cynical, race-profiteering troublemakers like NBC’s Al Sharpton, Joe Scarborough, and Savannah Guthrie are stirring hatred because it fits their biased worldview and boosts ratings. Race-baiting persists in America because it’s encouraged by the press.

Sharpton and his ilk in the media will have to answer for any violence perpetrated against George Zimmerman or anyone else in the name of Trayvon Martin. Martin’s death was an absolute tragedy, but that doesn’t give the liberal media carte blanche to encourage racial violence and mayhem for ratings.

It’s time the left-wing media are held accountable for their actions.

Sincerely,



L. Brent Bozell III
Founder and President
Media Research Center

L. Brent Bozell III, Media Research Center <brent.bozell@mrc.org>