I think GZ has more potential assets than many realize. He already has a suit against NBC for the defamatory editing they did on the recording of his phone call to the police. This could be worth several million. He has more suits just waiting to be filed against other media outlets. He has claims against the State of Florida for the railroad job they did.
Next he has book and movie rights. And, I would not at all be surprised to see him on a speaking tour in a few months. Security will be a challenge, but not insurmountable.
>>I think GZ has more potential assets than many realize.
Yes, that is a good point.
IMHO, and IANAL, the potential suits against journalism should put Zimmerman, O’Mara, and West on Easy Street. With enough left over to indemnify Zimmerman’s friends against their losses and security infringements. The thing is, NBC is low-hanging fruit because nobody with two functioning neurons in their head could believe that the excision of answers and then questions from the Zimmerman conversation with the police NEN was anything less than a malicious libel. NBC intentionally promoted a situation in which Zimmerman is, perhaps permanently, unable to work and have a normal life. Zimmerman shouldn’t be settling with NBC for less than $20 million (with the lawyers in for half). I think they should really be suing for $100 million, and hanging pretty tough in negotiations to settle. Because they have an open-and-shut case.But to me the real deal is to sue journalism as a whole. How? By naming the Associated Press and its member news outlets. And claiming that they are in cahoots among themselves to propagandize against Zimmerman (actually, against middle class Americans in general - Zimmerman should be lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit). It should be a RICO lawsuit, asking for triple damages. Ruinous damages, because of their outrageous propagandistic behavior.
The Associated Press in particular, and wire services in general, are anachronisms in the Internet era because their business model is predicated on the value of conserving transmission bandwidth - bandwidth which by now is dirt cheap. Wire services have inherent monopolistic tendencies.
And the FCC should also be named, and be enjoined against promoting or even allowing broadcast journalism which claims objectivity (which is after all indistinguishable from claiming wisdom, which is the source of sophistry).