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(Reuters) - An internal NBC News probe has determined a "seasoned" producer was to blame for a misleading clip of a 911 call that the network broadcast during its coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting, according to two sources at the network. NBC News brass interviewed more than half a dozen staffers during its investigation of the misleadingly edited 911 call placed by George Zimmerman just before he shot the unarmed Florida teenager, said the sources, one of whom is an executive at the network. The clip aired on the network's flagship "Today" morning show last week. The edit made...

Critics say the "Today" show attempted to incite racial anger when it cut crucial seconds from audio of a phone call placed by George Zimmerman just before he killed the teenager. In Interview With Piers Morgan, George Zimmerman's NBC News is being excoriated in some circles – with competitor Fox News Channel leading the charge – for selectively editing audio of the 911 call placed by George Zimmerman just before he killed Trayvon Martin. The NBC segment in question featured anchor Ron Allen and ran on the Today show on Tuesday. On Thursday, Sean Hannity and guest Brent Bozell played...

Reporting that it has had the video "clarified" by a forensics company, ABC News is now saying that a police surveillance recording of George Zimmerman "shows the neighborhood watch captain with an injury to the back of his head." Last Wednesday, when it broke the news of the video's existence and broadcast it, ABC News said "no abrasions or blood can be seen in the video." We posted about that report, while noting that "it is possible that paramedics cleaned any blood before Zimmerman arrived at the police station." Now, ABC News says, Forensic Protection Inc. has digitally improved the...

An "outraged" Florida prosecutor fired back on Monday at the family of Trayvon Martin, describing as "outright lies" their account that he and a local police chief met and decided not to follow a detective's advice and arrest the teenager's killer. ... In the letter delivered Monday, the Martin family said that a Sanford police detective "filed an affidavit stating that he did not find Zimmerman's statements credible in light of the circumstances and facts surrounding the shooting." The family said Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee and State Attorney Norm Wolfinger met the night of the shooting and disregarded the...

NBC News has completed the internal investigation into the edited tape of George Zimmerman’s 911 call, which was aired on Today. The network admitted an “error” and apologized to viewers. The edited call was aired on Today, but was aired repeatedly — including during MSNBC segments about the Trayvon Martin case. NBC’s audio made it seem as though Zimmerman voluntarily offered that Martin looked suspicious because he was black. The unedited audio, The Hollywood Reporter notes, “reveals that Zimmerman didn’t mention Martin’s race until the 911 operator asked him, ‘Is he white, black or Hispanic?’” From The Hollywood Reporter: “During...

NBC News issued an apology Tuesday for the way it handled the broadcasting of the 911 conversation between George Zimmerman and a police dispatcher in the Trayvon Martin case. Following reports that NBC aired audio of the call was edited in a way that implied Zimmerman was racist, the network launched an internal investigation. "During our investigation it became evident that there was an error made in the production process that we deeply regret. We will be taking the necessary steps to prevent this from happening in the future and apologize to our viewers," the network said in a statement...

...shows little evidence of a broken nose, the president of the Florida College of Emergency Physicians said today.

Two days ago, Big Journalism reported on a published report by MSNBC staff and NBC News that contained an irresponsibly edited quote from George Zimmerman's 911 call that mislead to portray him as racist. It's now emerged that NBC actually aired an edited version of the call that matches the published report. In the NBC segment, Zimmerman says: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.” The full version, though, unfolds 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,...

The lottery drawing tonight might make someone very rich and – for the first time ever for a lottery – richer than Mitt Romney. Sure, a few jackpot totals have been greater than Romney’s estimated worth of $250 million, but after various taxes, no cash payout has ever topped his wealth. Tonight’s cash option of an estimated $398.8 million would place some lucky person far above the Romneys on the list of Very Rich Americans. There’s lots of advice being given today on what to do with all that money if you win, but Mitt Romney might have a few...

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough delivered a devastating critique of conservative sites that have engaged in a coordinated effort to tarnish the reputation of Trayvon Martin in death. “Why is it that some on the right are actually taking this up as a cause,” asked an incredulous Scarborough. “As National Review said almost immediately after it happened, ‘this has nothing to do with gun rights, this has nothing to do with the second amendment, this has nothing to do with stand your ground laws, this has nothing to do with the NRA. This has everything to do with...

When a story regarding the Trayvon Martin death appears, it is almost universally accompanied by this image: It is of a Trayvon Martin years younger than he really was. And it's not accurate. Dan Linehan has done some sleuthing and found a much different picture of Trayvon Martin than the one being forced down our throats. The real Trayvon Martin is being scrubbed as you read this. This is a more recent image of Trayvon Martin And so is this: TwitterIt seems that Tray was also on Twitter, but his account seems to have been recently deleted by his family...

While Lord Justice Leveson ponders where to draw the ethical line for British journalists, consider the latest ethical row in the United States.Some 25 editorial staff working for Gannett newspapers in Wisconsin have come under fire from their bosses - and some journalists - for taking part in a political ballot.They signed a petition demanding that the state's governor, Scott Walker, be recalled (reasons here).Kevin Corrado, publisher of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, called the journalists' action "disheartening" and said they would face "disciplinary measures." He told his readers: "It has caused us to examine how this could have happened, how...

After it was reported Monday that Malia Obama was going to Mexico for spring break with 25 Secret Service agents, people began to notice that such reports were being scrubbed from the Internet. Politico's Dylan Byers reported Tuesday this was done at the request of the White House: The AFP page for the story now links to a story titled "Senegal music star Youssou Ndour hits campaign trail," as does the Yahoo page. The Huffington Post page now links directly back to the Huffington Post homepage. The Daily Mail, Telegraph, and Australian stories now lead to 404 error pages,...

Via Dan Riehl and Ace, this almost too good to check. Go read Rebel Pundit’s post for an explanation, then skip to 2:00 below. (If you missed Ed’s post this morning, by all means watch the whole thing.) After sneering at Joel Pollak for supposedly mischaracterizing the discipline and then refusing to define it herself, she finally demonstrates her grasp of Critical Race Theory by uncorking a definition that’s curiously similar to … the opening of Wikipedia’s intro on CRT, replete with the noncolloquial use of “intersection” to describe an interdisciplinary study. Could be a coincidence — the definition she...

The active page has been pulled, but here is a screenshot of an earlier Politico report. The reporter claims that President Obama is showing his support of unions by flying a flag representing Wisconsin Local #1848.Sorry, lady. That is Wisconsin's State Flag.Donovan Slack is listed as Politico's "lead writer for '44', a living diary of the Obama presidency."

Newt Gingrich better hope voters who lapped up his delicious hits on the “elite media” and liberals don’t read the Drudge Report this morning. Or the National Review. Or the American Spectator. Or Ann Coulter. If they do, Gingrich comes off looking like a dangerous, anti-Reagan, Clintonian fraud. It’s as if the conservative media over the past 24 hours decided Gingrich is for real, and they need to come clean about the man they really know before it’s too late.

From Accuracy in Media’s Logan Churchwell: An internal memo penned by the Associated Press’ Managing Editor Mike Oreskes was leaked and featured on sites such as The Huffington Post and Gawker this morning. As an effort to keep up with the rapidly changing news cycle, Oreskes is now offering a new direction for the wire service. The new plan of action is called “The New Distinctiveness.” But why the change? The AP defines the problem: “AP wins when news breaks, but after an hour or two we’re often replaced by a piece of content from someone else who has executed...

Michele Bachmann's campaign accused CBS News of bias after her spokeswoman was included on an email chain between network officials that suggested she would get limited questions during Saturday's debate. In the email chain—which the Bachmann campaign posted to its Facebook page —a CBS employee notified CBS News political director John Dickerson that Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart had volunteered the candidate for an interview on Dickerson's post-debate webcast. The employee copied Stewart on the email and told Dickerson that she had been included on the message. "Okay let's keep it loose though since she's not going to get many questions...

This afternoon, Martin Bashir invited MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews onto is program to discuss both the personal and policy-related issues surrounding GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain‘s campaign. Where policy is concerned, asked Bashir, “is Herman Cain a serious candidate for president?” Matthews’ response was simple, and blunt: No. And the reason he’s not is he is not prepared even to the point of being a newspaper reader. I can tell — we all can — when someone is unfamiliar with a term like “neoconservative,” which has been at the heart of the whole debate over the war with Iraq, with...

On Wednesday's Early Show, CBS's Betty Nguyen incorrectly reported that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain had been accused of "sexual assault" by two women. Nguyen later accurately reported that the women actually leveled sexual harassment allegations against Cain. The fill-in news anchor used the erroneous term during a 14-second news brief 37 minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour: "One of two women who accuse Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain of sexual assault wants to speak out. The woman's lawyer say she wants to be released from a confidentiality agreement, so that she can publically respond to Cain's recent claims...