Tag Archives: Trayvon Martin

Apr 24 2012 21 cmnts
General, Propaganda, Racism

Fox News Incites Race Riots: Creates Trayvon Martin Controversy From Unrelated Crime

Posted by: Mark @ 4:21 pm

Despite the seemingly constant stream of racist propaganda and rhetoric emanating from Fox News, they still manage to exceed their own repulsive standards with ever more dishonest and hateful distortions of the news. After publishing stories that blame Trayvon Martin’s demise on his clothing, and pictures that deliberately seek to put Trayvon in a negative light, Fox has rocketed to new heights of blatant prejudice and painfully perverse journalism.

In Mobile, Alabama, a white man was hospitalized from a beating by a group of African-Americans after a dispute over the use of the street for a game of basketball. The assault was inexcusably brutal and the police are searching for suspects who deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law. But that would not be a sufficiently sensational reaction for the twisted editors at Fox News. They published their stories on Fox News and Fox Nation this way:

Fox News Trayvon Mob

The facts of this crime are fairly clear. It was an extreme overreaction to a neighborhood argument that concerned only the parties involved. It had absolutely nothing to do with the incident in Florida last month where an unarmed teenager was shot to death while walking home from the market. The only connecting factor was the claim by the victim’s sister that she heard one person say “Now that’s justice for Trayvon.” There have been no other witnesses who have corroborated her account, but even if there were the only significance of it would be that one of the perpetrators was a jerk in addition to being a thug.

That’s not how Fox News sees it. Their headline at Fox Nation veritably declares that the hoodlums who committed the assault were a “Justice for Trayvon Mob,” as if it were a political statement emanating from the Florida incident. Nothing in the facts of this crime point to that in even the most remote sense. The headline on Fox News itself states matter-of-factly that the “mob invoked Trayvon.” However there is only one unconfirmed report that a single witness alleged that a single person brought Trayvon’s name into this. That hardly justifies associating the whole mob’s actions with Trayvon. Fox’s headline also implies that this should be designated a hate crime despite any evidence of that being the case.

The entire purpose of these overt distortions is to fuel racial animus directed at Trayvon Martin specifically, and to African-Americans generally. There is a stench of incitement in Fox’s words that suggest their desire to stir up other racially motivated crimes or even full-on race riots. It is horribly irresponsible for a so-called news enterprise to sink to these depths of cynicism and antagonism.

From the very beginning of the Trayvon Martin incident, Fox News has tried to advance the impression that African-Americans are animals on the verge of erupting into violence. Fox has suggested that riots would occur if George Zimmerman were not arrested, or if he were not convicted. The view at Fox is that African-Americans are incapable of respecting the progress of justice. And even when no riots ensue, Fox can sit back smugly and celebrate having created the impression that civil unrest was narrowly averted.

It’s a good thing that African-Americans (and most Americans in general) are far more civilized than the bigoted neanderthals at Fox. These brazen tactics are designed to manufacture potentially dangerous hostilities and are more at home in the quarters of Klans and racist militias. How Fox News gets away with this is unfathomable. Their audience should find it revolting and their peers in the press should speak out against this sort of noxious activism. Although it is unlikely to succeed, it certainly can’t help. This isn’t news, it’s hate speech.

Apr 11 2012 75 cmnts
General, Propaganda

Graphic Evidence Of The Racism Of Fox News: Racial Photoshopping

Posted by: Mark @ 2:39 pm

News reports are suggesting that later today the authorities in Florida will announce charges against Trayvon Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman. Coverage of this story was handled by Fox News in a manner that is revealing and offensive – and wholly unique to Fox News:

Fox News - Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman

This is a journalistic lynching. And note, this is not Fox Nation. It is the mothership, Fox News. The editors at this alleged “news” network are demonstrating their overt hostility to both African-Americans and journalistic ethics. If this picture doesn’t finally establish the overarching prejudice of Fox, it’s hard to know what will. Their bias is so clearly being exercised with a zealotry that the Klan would shrink from. How do they get away with this?

[Update] Fox News changed their graphic.

Fox News - Trayvon

This is a more impartial photo that does not disparage the victim (although it still is not as overtly cheerful as Zimmerman’s pic). You think they got a few complaints about the previous photo? They must have had a reason for changing it.


[Addendum] A couple of commenters have asserted (without proof) that the lighter picture of Trayvon was the one that was Photoshopped. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that they are right and that the picture Fox used was not altered (at least by Fox). That does not change the fact that Fox made an editorial decision to use that picture. They had numerous pictures from which to choose of both Trayvon and Zimmerman, and they chose the most negative picture of Trayvon which they paired with the most positive picture of Zimmerman. That was not an accident. It was the result of deliberate editorial judgment. And it tells us everything we need to know about Fox’s editors.

For more on the subject of media and race, check out the excellent book by Democracy Now’s Juan Gonzalez: News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.

There has also been some discussion as to whether making Trayvon look darker was inherently racist. Two points: 1) Making anyone look darker has the effect of making them look more sinister. And making the subject of a photo look more sinister, regardless of race, is blatant editorial bias. 2) Darker skinned African-Americans are not viewed more negatively by fair-minded people who are free of prejudice, but they are viewed more negatively by people predisposed to discriminate on the basis of race – i.e. Fox News viewers. Fox is playing to their audience and they know who they are. Studies show that the African-American segment of viewers of Fox News in primetime is only 1.38%. That compares to 19.3% for MSNBC, and 20.7% for CNN, numbers that are much closer to the 14% of African-Americans in the population at large. Or, as the Simpsons put it…

Fox News - Simpsons

Finally, The question of whether or not George Zimmerman is racist, while important, is secondary here. The real problem is the racism exhibited by the local law enforcement authorities who simply accepted Zimmerman’s claims of self-defense without making an arrest and conducting a proper investigation. Exacerbating that is the overt racism of the right-wing press and their followers. The primary focus going forward should, of course, be the pursuit of justice and the suffering of the victims family. After that the focus should fall on the police and the media as this affair winds its way through the courts. But we should be grateful that concerned citizens spoke out and hit the streets to protest this injustice or there would be no court case at all.

Apr 02 2012 4 cmnts
General, Wankery

Liz Trotta Of Fox News To Black Reporters: Expressing Yourself Hurts Your Credibility

Posted by: Mark @ 9:33 am

Remember Liz Trotta? She’s the Fox News analyst who said a few weeks ago that women in the military should expect to be raped. And who can forget her accusation that Seal Team 6 was being used as political operatives when they rescued Americans held by pirates? And then there was the time that she dismissed acts of violence against Democrats by asserting that the victims were whining. She also famously used her Fox News platform to make a joke about assassinating President Obama.

Well now we can add another commendation for contemptuous commentary to her nauseating resume. This weekend Trotta took her place on Fox News to lambaste the media, and particularly African-American reporters, for covering the Trayvon Martin killing. Trotta complained that “NBC News did a show with a couple of their black employees,” including Lester Holt, who she said was her favorite anchorman of all time. However, she charged that Holt and his fellow African-American reporters…

“…had to agree to telling their experiences as a black person, how the cops would follow them, how security and departments would follow them. It was a sorry show. Where’s the objectivity of this? Why do you involve your black reporters and anchors in this kind of framework that can only hurt their credibility?”

Trotta never revealed where she got the idea that these reporters “had to agree” to express themselves as if they had no editorial discretion or free will. And she is curiously critical of the notion that African-Americans are even able to provide news commentary from a personal perspective (you know, the way white reporters do every day). In her remarks Trotta defined “unique perspective” as “reaching really far to make their liberal case without any evidence to black it up.” And yes, after repeated listening it seems to me that she actually said “black it up,” an interesting Freudian slip off the edge of a harrowing cliff. Then Trotta delivered an absolutely ludicrous closing that demonstrated her utter lack of knowledge of the law:

“Why must we convict George Zimmerman before he’s even arrested? The fact that he isn’t arrested, I open that to the court. But let’s not fry the guy before he’s even given a hearing. That’s what he’s getting now, is a hearing. It’s been a disgraceful show from the media.”


There is so much wrong in those comments that it’s hard to know where to begin. First of all, nobody is convicting Zimmerman before he’s arrested. However, he has to be arrested before there can be a full investigation that preserves and analyzes evidence, records statements, and interviews witnesses and experts. Secondly, it isn’t up to a court to decide whether he should be arrested. Why she’s leaving that “open” to the court I have no idea. Third, Zimmerman is not getting a hearing now, as Trotta claims. It’s the justice system that is getting a hearing from the public for failing to act responsibly. And finally, while Trotta, and others in the conservative media, are so concerned about the rights and reputation of Zimmerman, they are quick to smear Martin as a delinquent and a gangster thug.

I would, however, have to agree with Trotta that some of the media reporting on this has been disgraceful, starting with Trotta herself and her colleagues at Fox News. The insult to reporters of color who contribute perspectives that only they are able to, is reprehensible. It’s also hypocritical since it was just that sort of personal observation that Fox News defended when they hired Juan Williams. Apparently Fox News thinks it’s OK for a black reporter to express his feelings when they insult Muslims, but it’s disgraceful and hurtful to their credibility if those feelings are sympathetic toward a murdered teenager.

Apr 01 2012 9 cmnts
General

Breitbart’s Zimmerman Defense Team Discovers Mysterious Shadow That Proves Trayvon Martin’s Guilt

Posted by: Mark @ 2:58 pm

The Breitbrats have been striving mightily to absolve George Zimmerman of any responsibility for Trayvon Martin’s death. Most recently they have posted a video that they claim shows a wound on the back of the head of shooter George Zimmerman. It is their contention that the presence of such a wound proves that Zimmerman was the victim in a scuffle wherein Martin was the aggressor.

It is a pretty long stretch to surmise that a 140 pound teenager decided to attack an armed man twice his size, but that’s the line that the right-wing is peddling. And no one does it with more bombastic zeal than Breitbrat Dan Riehl. In his article he claims to have acquired a new hi-def video that contradicts a police video previously released by ABC News.

“A new High Definition clip from the same video appears to make clear that Zimmerman had a gash, or wound of some kind on the back of his head. That would be totally consistent with his version of events on the night in question and opposite the impression ABC News gave its viewers.”

Notice that the Breitbrats are endeavoring to corroborate Zimmerman’s story. Why conservatives have chosen to align themselves with the shooter in this incident is mind-boggling. Are they just naturally sympathetic toward gunmen who kill unarmed kids? Why wouldn’t they be concerned about the fair and proper administration of justice wherein anyone who shot another person is arrested and investigated to determine if a crime had been committed? For the trigger-happy rightists this is just a political skirmish where they get to put on a phony bravado and spew NRA cliches.

And notice also that they contradict themselves within just a few sentences. First they assert that the video “make[s] clear that Zimmerman had a gash, or wound,” then, in the same paragraph, they declare the video inconclusive. And not just inconclusive, but shoddily and unethically so:

“Given analysis by Breitbart Media and the Daily Caller already performed, the ABC video appeared to be inconclusive, at best. [...] any determination beyond the video being inconclusive is shoddy, if not intentionally unethical, Journalism – if not deceptive and misleading Journalism.”

How the Breitbrats can view an inconclusive video and conclude that a wound is clear is more than a little curious. The only shoddy, unethical journalism being practiced here is by Riehl and the Breitbrats. A viewing of the video they posted reveals their deliberate attempt to distort the evidence. Consistent with their history of deceptively misrepresenting videos, the Breitbrats have selectively focused on a single frame of this video to advance their dishonest argument. However, the frames before and after the one on which they focus tell a more complete story:

Click to enlarge.
Breitbart Zimmerman Video

As is obvious from this video, there was no injury on Zimmerman’s head. That is, unless the injury would appear and disappear every few seconds. What’s more, had there actually been an injury, and it was cleaned up at the scene by paramedics as claimed by Zimmerman’s camp, why are there no bandages over the wounds? These are wounds that were described as serious, such as a broken nose and a gash that would require stitches. But according to the Breitbart’s defense team, Zimmerman’s injuries healed completely (but for an alleged bruise) by the time he arrived at the police station within an hour of the incident.

The only thing that any of the critics of the police are requesting is that the normal course of justice be taken. No one is trying Zimmerman on television or pronouncing verdicts. But any decent citizen ought to agree that the circumstances of this incident require an investigation that can only occur with an arrest and the opening of a case. But that’s something the right is dead-set against. We can only wonder why.

Mar 29 2012 13 cmnts
General, Propaganda

Breitbart Whitewashing Zimmerman, Blaming Obama For Trayvon Martin Crisis

Posted by: Mark @ 12:04 pm

The folks over at Breitbart’s joint are feverishly striving to exonerate Trayvon Martin’s shooter, George Zimmerman. Their web sites are plastered with stories that either defend Zimmerman or shift the discussion to other persons or subjects.

In one article, Breitbrat Dan Riehl makes the inane argument that ABC News was “reckless” in their decision to release a police videotape showing Zimmerman arriving at the police station for questioning. The video is significant in that it contradicts prior assertions that Zimmerman had been beaten and bloodied by Martin. There is no evidence of any injury to Zimmerman in the video.

Nevertheless, Riehl advances rebuttals that sound as if he is working for the Zimmerman legal defense team. He begins by suggesting that the video was too low quality to reveal anything conclusive. Then, contradicting himself, writes, “True, there appears to be no blood on Zimmerman’s shirt.” Then Riehl invents scenarios wherein Zimmerman was allowed by police to change his allegedly bloody clothes before arriving at the station, which would be a severe violation of procedure and ethics. What’s more, it makes no sense because a bloody shirt would be evidence of a struggle during which Zimmerman could claim to have felt threatened. Why would police suppress evidence that would have justified their decision to release Zimmerman?

Riehl’s account is blatantly biased and incoherent. And he tops it off by blasting ABC for releasing the video saying that the network “should be ashamed of its reckless highlighting of a non-story.” So apparently Riehl is of the opinion that ABC should have kept the video a secret. That’s how Breitbart’s BigJournalism practices the craft of journalism.

Another article, this time by Joel Pollak, editor of Breitbart’s BigGovernment site, seeks to tie President Obama to the Martin story. Pollak’s theory is a nearly incomprehensible mashup of Martin, Obama, and Derrick Bell, the subject of Breitbart’s failed attempt to expose the President as a college radical.

Pollak’s article is titled, “Critical Race Theory and the Trayvon Martin Case.” Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a legal/academic concept that Bell had written about and studied. It holds that there is more to racism than just the attitudes held by individuals, that it is also ingrained in society via traditional economic and judicial hierarchies. Pollak simplistically and falsely begins his narrative by defining CRT as “characterized by white supremacy–an idea Obama invoked by insisting that Americans ‘examine the laws’ that supposedly led to Martin’s death.” To be clear, Pollak is referring to the comment Obama made in response to a reporter’s question:

“I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened.

“And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”

I’m not sure how any fair person could object to that. Yet that’s the statement that Pollak regards as an evocation of white supremacy. If anything, the Martin tragedy supports CRT by demonstrating the flaws in the judicial system. This is a case where after an unarmed black teenager was shot and killed, his body was tagged as a “John Doe” and tested for drugs. The shooter, on the other hand, was never tested for drugs or alcohol and was released by police with his weapon and no plans to investigate or indict him for any crime. If that isn’t reason enough to examine the laws than what on earth would be?


Pollak continues saying that Obama “waded in, playing up the racial drama,” and then remarkably writes “Obama–the center of the crisis, and to some extent its intended beneficiary.” Obama is only the center of the controversy in the warped minds of extremist, right-wing provocateurs like Pollak. And where he gets the notion that Obama was the “intended” beneficiary is beyond comprehension. If Pollak actually believes that this crisis was conceived and executed to help the President, he is seriously in need of the psychiatric attention that is now available to him thanks to ObamaCare.

Pollak closes by saying that “To speculate that Zimmerman is guilty based on the available facts is one thing; to convict him based on his supposed race, and on Martin’s, is the classic definition of “prejudice.’” However, the people protesting the handling of this affair are not convicting Zimmerman of anything. They are merely demanding that the ordinary process of justice be observed.

Ordinarily after a shooting there is an arrest and an investigation, which could lead to a trial if the evidence warrants. But the Breitbrats are all fired up to whitewash this crime and sweep it under their racist rug. They load up their web sites with tangential stories about celebrity Tweets, and over-zealous protesters, and bogus accusations of media bias, and absurd connections to a conspiratorial White House that must have planned the whole thing.

All I can say is that it’s a damn good thing that Breitbart wasn’t around when Martin Luther King was assassinated. They would surely have defended James Earl Ray and blamed the whole thing on President Johnson.

Mar 28 2012 4 cmnts
General, Wankery

Fox News Psycho Analyst Keith Ablow: Obama Has It In For America

Posted by: Mark @ 2:24 pm

Fox News’ resident psychiatrist, a member of the Fox News “A” Team, visited Lou Dobbs yesterday on the failing Fox Business Network. The two of them discussed the Trayvon Martin shooting in the unique manner that is typical of the leader in dishonest, uninformed, hyperbolic, right-wing media.

Much of the conversation focused on President Obama’s comments on the subject a few days ago in response to a question from a reporter. The crux of their criticism centered Obama’s personal reflection that “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Both Dobbs and Ablow were incensed that Obama expressed that personal reflection and accused him of turning the incident into a racial matter. They complained that the President should have sought to unite the country and address the shock that all Americans must feel after hearing about this tragedy. And, oddly enough, that’s exactly what Obama did. Preceding the personal part of his comments, Obama said…

Obama: I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.

Nevertheless, Dobbs and Ablow only heard the part of the remarks that they could misconstrue as racial. It is still mind-boggling how rightists can so cavalierly assert that Obama is hell-bent on disparaging white people – like his mother. And it’s rather disingenuous for conservatives like Dobbs and Ablow to portray the Martin incident as a tragedy that ought not to be limited by race, when the other half of the time they are discussing it, they don’t regard it as tragic at all, but simply a case of self defense from an aggressive black teenager.

As usual, Ablow distinguishes himself by making an absurdly remote diagnosis of the President, a man he’s never examined or even met. That is an explicit violation of the standards of ethics of the American Psychiatric Association, which Ablow need not worry about since he was forced to separate himself from the APA due to “ethical differences.” Ablow’s conclusion, on the basis of information he gleaned from a paranoid hallucination, is that Obama is an anti-American zealot on a mission to bring the empire to ruin.

Ablow: As a psychiatrist, there is a certain point, when you get a diagnosis, you say, OK look, absent something that refutes this, this is the diagnosis. A president who hangs around with Rev. Wright – whose wife said that she was never proud of this country – has an edge. He’s got it in for this country. And at moments when there’s an opportunity to fracture the unity, he does.

Setting aside the fact that Ablow is lying about Obama’s relationship with Wright and Michelle’s comments on pride, his assertion that Obama has “got it in for this country” is just plain lunacy. Does he really think that Obama raised himself up from a struggling single-parent home, worked through schooling to achieve honors from one the nation’s most demanding universities, applied his skills to both public and private enterprises, and put himself before a grueling campaign that resulted in his being elected president of the United States, all because he has a hankering to tear it all down?

Where do these nutjobs get these unfathomably ludicrous theories? Do all Fox analysts have to have lobotomies prior to going on the air? Any reputable news enterprise would be embarrassed by having someone like Ablow on their payroll. So it’s a good thing for Ablow that Fox News exists.

Mar 23 2012 6 cmnts
General, Wankery

Geraldo Rivera: The Hoodie Was Responsible For Trayvon Martin’s Death

Posted by: Mark @ 1:01 pm

In another example of how Fox News will turn a story on its head if it doesn’t fit into the network’s mission of division, bias, and anti-liberalism, Geraldo Rivera appeared on Fox & Friends to divert the Trayvon Martin murder story into an indictment of fashion and an exercise in blaming the victim.

Rivera: I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.

So it was Trayvon’s fault (or his parents) for wearing an article of clothing that exudes some inherent threat and justifies violent reactions against the wearer. I suppose that if Trayvon had been wearing a short skirt that would have been an invitation for Zimmerman to rape him.

Geraldo went on to assert that hoodies are exclusively associated with criminals and asked “What’s the instant identification?” He answered his own question by saying that wearing a hoodie will cause you to be perceived as a gangster and a menace. Uh huh. You mean like these degenerate hoodlums?

Hoodie Hoodlums

Geraldo and his enablers at Fox News need to stop fretting over superficial trivialities and put the blame where it belongs. Firstly on the guy with the gun who shot an innocent teenager in cold blood without provocation. Then on the barbaric “Stand your Ground” laws that permit people to commit murder with impunity. And finally on the media that rushes to divert responsibility from the guilty and place it on the victims. To paraphrase Geraldo, I think it would be more correct to say that “Fox News is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.” Still not correct, but closer to it than what Geraldo said.

[Update:] Geraldo thinks that if someone is murdered while wearing a hoodie, that law abiding people should alter their behavior to satisfy the murderers, rather than making the murderers stop killing people. It makes you wonder how he would have viewed some other historical events.

Fox News

Fox Nation vs. Reality