Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, a Tragedy and the media.

This story is one of bad judgement, tragedy and overzealous media. Trayvon Martin is dead and George Zimmerman will forever be scarred by the events that transpired. Worse yet however, was the media response to what a jury has determined to be a justifiable shooting.

Did Mr. Zimmerman show poor judgement by following Mr. Martin on the evening of the shooting? Yes he did, extremely poor judgement. But the media, for the most part, has ignored the fact that Trayvon Martin’s attack on Zimmerman was also a huge display of seriously poor judgement. They both could simply have exchanged words and walked away. Martin however, decided to escalate the situation by using violence. That choice cost him his life.

Now we come to the issue of the media. The large networks in big cities pandered to the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and all the others who scream racism when ever there is a camera nearby. Had Zimmerman been a black man, this story would never have made it out of Sanford, Florida. But the news media made it a big deal. They published stories that were inaccurate, they played up the racial angle and as a group, they did a piss poor job of covering the story.

The law says Mr. Zimmerman is not guilty, the courts verified that. Yet we still have protests and whining from small groups of people who don’t live in Florida and most likely have no clue where Sanford is. The media continue to cover this stuff when the story is over and done with. How about covering the dozens of shootings in Chicago over the July 4th weekend? No, hardly a word of national news nor outrage about those shootings. Why no coverage? Because by and large there is no “racial” angle for the press to exploit. Had Mr. Zimmerman been a black man and Mr. Martin been a white man, the only stories we would have heard was about how Mr. Zimmerman was being railroaded because of his race. Of course, it didn’t happen that way and some folks choose to ignore the simple fact that Mr. Martin choose to bring fists to a gunfight.

The whole episode was a tragedy. One young man is dead and another will now have to look over his shoulder for years to come. But the real tragedy here is the absolutely overblown, inaccurate and biased media coverage (on both sides), that turned a simple shooting into a national event. The media should be ashamed of pandering to the special interest groups all the name of ratings and market share.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled surfing,
Tim
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