NBC Keeps Lying: 'Seasoned' Producer was Responsible for Network's 'Mistake' in Zimmerman Edit

By way of Jammie Wearing Fool, here’s NBC’s latest excuse:

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.

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The sources described the producer’s actions as a very bad mistake, but not deliberate.

That is a lie. There is no way — no way — that the Zimmerman edit was a mistake. It was an internal edit of audio, meaning that it was an edit out of material that was kept in the final edit, on the head and tail of the material that was cut out. To accomplish that edit, the editor had to set edit In and Out points inside the timeline and then delete the material between those two points. Such an edit does not take very long, probably less than a minute unless the resulting timeline introduces pops or other glitches that had to be smoothed out. The edit materially altered the audio in a way that told a story — a false story. An error would probably clip a word or sentence, but this one did not. It changed the exchange between Zimmerman and the 911 dispatcher from 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, looking about.

911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?

ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.

To this:

“This guy looks like he’s up to no good … he looks black,” Zimmerman told a police dispatcher from his car.

Let’s highlight the part lopped out, in red:

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.

911 DISPATCHER: Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?

ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.

I have been a video and audio editor for going on 20 years and have used a wide variety of tools in hundreds of productions during those years, from pieces that appeared on IMAX screens to pieces that appeared exclusively online. There is no way to accomplish the Zimmerman edit as the result of any honest “mistake.” You have to go inside the material to extract part of it out, and then ensure that the resulting edit is smooth enough so that it will not be distracting. There might be pops or changes in the background noise that have to be smoothed out with ramps or fades. This edit was deliberate, and involved several people in the editing booth, the production team, the web production team, and legal. NBC still is not telling the truth, and the “seasoned” producer and the dishonest editing, content and legal teams who put this disgraceful smear on TV and on the web still have their jobs. They should lose those jobs and we should learn their names, at least if NBC wants to retain any shred of credibility.