TV Newser reports that a third NBC employee has been fired for dishonestly editing George Zimmerman’s 911 call. The fired employee’s name is Lilia Luciano. The edit that she created is, if anything, even more deceptive than the NBC edit that stirred racial angles in the story of Trayvon Martin’s fatal shooting, and which has resulted in the firing of two other NBC employees.
In a story for the “Today” show on March 20, Luciano used part of the George Zimmerman 911 call in which an entire phrase (italicized below) was taken from a later part of the conversation:
Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good or on drugs or something. He’s got his hand in his waistband. And he’s a black male.
Dispatcher: Are you following him?
Zimmerman: Yeah.
Dispatcher: Okay, we don’t need you to do that.
But here is how Zimmerman’s conversation with the 911 dispatcher actually went:
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 white, black, or Hispanic?
Zimmerman: He looks black.
Luciano’s firing makes three employees fired for dishonest edits in this story at NBC; Lilia Luciano, who joined NBC from Univision 18 months ago; Jeff Burnside, the reporter and environmental activist at NBC’s Miami owned-and-operated affiliate; and another producer at NBC whom the network has not named. Their edits consistently played up race as the driving motive in George Zimmerman’s actions.
Like the previously known bad edit, Luciano’s edit makes Zimmerman’s read on Martin’s race a more prominent part of his his 911 call than it actually was. The possibility that any of these edits were accidental has already vanished. Luciano’s edit makes it quite clear that NBC’s producers from Miami to New York were building and propagating a racial narrative in the Martin shooting.
NBC’s initial story was that the misleading edits that aired on the Today show were “mistakes.” That was never plausible, but it is impossible that three producers working independently on the same story all drove the same narrative via the same or similar deceptive edits by mistake. Their edits are evidence of an agenda to use source material, in this case source material that will probably be evidence in a criminal trial, to create narratives out of the news. NBC has a major editorial problem on its hands, but is either in denial about it, or hopes that firing a producer here and there will make it appear that the network is rooting that problem out.
h/t The Blaze
It’s no longer just that three different producers made false edits. It’s that three different producers saw nothing wrong with making false edits. You can have one lone bad guy in any organization, but three of them, on such an explosive story? That tells me that the culture of NBC news is corrupt, that at a minimum tolerate manipulation of facts. NBC has zero credibility anymore, and that goes from Brian Williams on down.
Like I said yesterday I’ll believe NBC is serious when Brian Williams leaves to “spend more time with his family” and the whole today crew gets it’s walking papers. Staff, on screen performers, and all.
Personally, I’d love to see Bryan Williams interview himself and the rest of the crew of chucklehead/millionaire/journalists on how they feel about the role of “the rich.” Do they see themselves as “fat cats” and members of the horrible 1%, by any chance? Journalistically, it would be more valid than most of what they do.
Brian is a one-percenter. His star is buffed shiny by the crushed souls of the little people.
Be interesting to see what becomes of Lilia. She was on the Spanish-language Cosmo cover in November 2010. Maybe back to the T&A ghetto for a while since she blew her chance to move to the brainy neighborhood. Or maybe she could hook up with another unemployed Miami journalist, Rick Sanchez.
If it were a sexual harassment issue, I don’t think, with three different persons doing something they should not have, that NBC would not avoid being seen as having a pervasive hostile environment and losing cases accordingly.
The media are going to learn that the libel laws are not shields for bias anymore. One way or the other. Either by losing lawsuits, or seeing the people change the system wholesale. For if this firing does not show there exists at NBC pervasive and corporate-wide *malice* towards anyone not liberal or fitting liberal stereotypes, malice NBC has done nothing to seriously prevent, nothing will.
And then that would mean that the case for changing the system could be made. The Supreme Court of the United States is simply not going to be able to forever insist that every American willingly and cheerfully submit to the idea of having been born with saddles on their backs, and the favored few of the media born booted and spurred, authorized to ride an American anytime they want and as hard as they want just as long as they say the words “public figure” to make it legitimate.
Only two employees (Luciano and Burnside) have been fired.
The network CLAIMS that they fired a producer responsible for the Today Show “mistake,” but we have no reason whatsoever to believe them. Until a name is released, we have only their word for it, and frankly, that isn’t worth spit.
We are no longer dealing with “liberal bias” in the MSM. We are dealing with leftist agit-prop.
That’s been the case for at least two or three decades now.
More like “back to the 1950′s” and even to the 1940′s in some respects.
Really? See: Walter Duranty and a whole slew of others going WAYYY back to the 1930′s and 40′s.
I wouldn’t be surprised if none of them were actually fired. It’s just as likely they were “let go” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) for a few weeks until the dust could settle, then they’ll be quietly brought back with full back pay. After all, payroll records aren’t exactly public information, and people fired for misconduct are generally not eligible for unemployment compensation.
Bottom line: Nothing an MSM outlet claims can be taken at face value.
The networks have done all Zimmerman’s attorney’s work for them. Certainly the trial will move from Sanford to somewhere else. Tampa? Fort Myers? Jacksonville?
Yeah, try to seat an impartial jury in those locales.
The prosecution is going to be begging to plead this case down to jaywalking.
And hey NBC, nationwide haven’t there been something like a dozen black on white beat downs as “Justice for Trayvon?” That’s almost enough people to get a class action suit going over your coverage. Please keep all your internal emails; civil discovery is a bitch.
If Z has a good lawyer, he will take NO DEALS!
Lilia. Her name is Lilia, not Lucy Luciano.
Freudian slip?
As in “Lucky” Luciano?
Television news –objective? Hardly. There have been activists in everyone’s TV news department for many decades. They only get changed out when management’s noses get rubbed in the crap that they spew every night. I use news services only as an indicator for further research. With the internet today, one can easily find source documents online and read them myself.
I do not trust most Journalists to correctly assess the relevance of certain things that are written in most documents.
I would be objective. Just saying. I wouldn’t hold NBC’s malfeasance against the prosecution, and it wouldn’t make me sympathetic to Zimmerman if the evidence really showed he was guilty. So there’s no way I could possibly be selected for jury duty. Neither side wants me.
…NBC’s producers from Miami to New York were building and propagating a racial narrative in the Martin shooting.
As usual, the “Progressive” Propagandists can’t find even one valid example to support their Cult’s upside down meme.
or hopes that firing a producer here and there will make it appear that the network is rooting that problem out
Let’s give them at least a little positive reinforcement here. Maybe a nice cookie. The longest journey starts with a single step, and all that.
That’s the kind of feel good, positive thinking crap that got us in this hole to begin with. If you “empower” a liar you get more lies.
Last year I did a walking tour of midtown Manhattan. The tour guide took us to see all the major news stations. While standing in front of Fox News, he made a derogatory comment about it being ‘biased’. Rather than embarrasing him with the facts in front of the tour, I took him aside at the end and proceeded to explain which networks were really biased and why. I then told him that it would be biased of me to leave him a tip.
You should have embarrassed him in front of the tour so that:
1. The rest of the tourists wouldn’t fall for his propaganda.
2. The public humiliation would make him think twice before doing the same thing again.
You were being way to kind.
The socialist-marxist media is in the tank for the socialist-marxist political ‘leadership’. What could go wrong? The sad fact is that the editors making the alterations in Zimmerman’s 911 call were just doing their jobs as set forth by the ownership of their publications.
If this was the American Revolution and the current elite media was reporting, there would never have been an America.
I’ve been on a number of forums over the years and whenever political issues were raised and would mention something I spotted on Fox News. The reply was always, “You can trust Faux News to tell the truth.” Then they would proceed to ignore every point being made, like a child that puts his fingers in his ears and yells, “nah nah nah nah.”
Now I have an answer to that, thanks to NBC. “Faux News? You mean NBC?”
Er, that should have been, “You CAN’T” trust…”
Sorry. I guess I need to hire a proofreader.
Er, that should have been, “You CAN’T trust…”
Sorry, I guess I need to hire a proofreader.
Some body needs to watch and see where these people are hired You know it wont take long if They didnt already have a place found for them
May the pig never find a job. Wait, the White House may hire her, she would fit right in.
Thankfully we have an alternate media now and this dishonesty can & does get caught.
One is an accident, two is a coincidence, three is a trend. It will be hard for NBC to claim three edits, all in the same direction, are “accidents”.
Journalism was supposed to be about reporting the facts, but then got changed as those going into journalism wanted to make a change in the world.
So we don’t have real journalism anymore, we have a lame stream, lap dog media that wants to lean so far to the left to prop up their failed policies that if it weren’t so sad, it would be comical.
But President Reagan had it right when he said the problems with liberals is that they know so much that isn’t so.
This is a system so corrupt, it takes Eliot Spitzer and Al Sharpton and centers shows around them. Does anyone believe that the “firings” didn’t come with golden parachutes already built in to “land” safely on their feet someplace else?
Does anyone believe for a minute that this entire narrative which marauded throughout the entire corrupt system wasn’t completely in bed with doing precisely what these cretins got fired for doing?
It isn’t an “individual” who “produced” or “edited” this story…it’s every conspirator who knew and went along with it. The whole bucket of slime.
The “firings” are no more real than the phony story and the fake narrative. They didn’t “catch” this themselves and “correct it”…they got caught and have continually tried to bury the story and cover it up. The “firings” are a head fake.
When was the last time that a Propaganda and Lies Ministry outlet actually BROKE a story that hurt a single item on the leftist menu? Hurt a Democrat national candidate? Broke away from the narrative.
I don’t mean “reported” on the story…in glossed over fashion after someone else broke the story…and it could not be totally ignored. Mostly they provide cover and camouflage…but when, precisely…have they BROKEN a story that didn’t hurt a Republican, tear down capitalism and the “rich” assault the military, slander law enforcement, provide puffery for leftists, and promote leftist Democrats?
When?
There is no “firing”, there is just a shuffling of the deck. And never bet with a dealer named “Lefty”.
I would love to see one or more of the white victims of “For Trayvon” black gang attacks sue NBC.
At any rate, the “journalists” should be indicted for conspiracy.
Who was fired? Without names and independent confirmation we will never know if anyone was actually fired.
‘Oh, ya, sure, that guy what done it doesn’t work here anymore so everything is ok now, you can trust us again.’