Via Dan Riehl at Breitbart:
Here’s what MSNBC staff and NBC News published.
“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.
The quote gives the impression Zimmerman was somehow equating the fact that Martin was black with his looking suspicious, or “up to no good.” Here is what MSNBC/NBC News left out thanks to a convenient ellipsis.
ZIMMERMAN: This guy looks like he’s up to no good, [begin ellipsis] 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? [end ellipsis]
ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.
The ellipses change the entire meaning of the exchange and why Zimmerman thought the man he was might be “up to no good.”
That MSNBC story went up a with the mangled quote few hours ago. Since that time, they have changed it without mentioning the edit. It now reads:
“This guy looks like he’s up to no good,” Zimmerman said in a 911 call. Asked by a dispatcher if he was white, Hispanic or black, he replied, “He looks black.” Zimmerman’s father has said that his son is Hispanic, grew up in a multiracial family, and is not racist.
That second sentence is accurate, and extremely important. It isn’t Zimmerman who brings up race, it’s the dispatcher, and there is no ill intent involved. The dispatcher is simply asking an informational question, which may be part of a script or checklist. The original MSNBC story was a classic case of mainstream media Dowdification.
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