DC Trawler

ABC News exclusive: ABC News was wrong about George Zimmerman’s injuries

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On the heels of the revelation that NBC News edited the tape of George Zimmerman’s 911 call to portray him as saying something he didn’t, here’s the latest from our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the media:

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How about that. Who could’ve predicted such a thing?

TheDC’s Matthew Boyle, for one. From March 29:

Surveillance video of George Zimmerman arriving at a Sanford, Fla. police station indicates what may be an injury to the back of his head, a Daily Caller analysis shows.

ABC News published the video Wednesday evening. Zimmerman is the man who shot and killed 17-year-old black teen Trayvon Martin a month ago.

“A police surveillance video taken the night that Trayvon Martin was shot dead shows no blood or bruises on George Zimmerman,” ABC News reporter Matt Gutman wrote, noting that Zimmerman told police “he shot Martin after he was punched in the nose, knocked down and had his head slammed into the ground.”

ABC News reported that Zimmerman appears uninjured in the video. But a still image from the video indicates what appears to be a vertical laceration or scar several inches long.

Now ABC News has reversed itself, and somehow it’s an “exclusive.” Not a correction. Not a retraction. An “exclusive.” Their big scoop is that their previous big scoop was wrong.

Glad to help, guys.

Update: If you’re skeptical that Matt Boyle had anything to do with ABC’s correction “exclusive,” here’s their reporter, Matt Gutman, engaging Boyle on Twitter last Friday:

Now they’re going to pretend they never got it wrong? They’re just going to gloss over that minor detail?

Update: It’s one thing to get it 100% wrong. It’s another to be righteously indignant about it. Dylan Stableford at The Cutline:

After ABC News aired surveillance video of George Zimmerman, Martin’s shooter, entering a police precinct without any apparent injuries, the Daily Caller treated the tape like a Zapruder film, enhancing still images from the video and concluding that it found “what may be an injury to the back of his head.” The site’s photo “analysis” of the back of Zimmerman’s head–replete with yellow Photoshopped arrows–“indicates what appears to be a vertical laceration or scar several inches long.”

Keep in mind, this is the same Daily Caller that published 152 pages of what the conservative site claims were Martin’s tweets–which, if they were, prove that Martin was a pretty typical high school male, preoccupied with girls, sex and getting out of class early.

Whereas we’re supposed to view Trayvon as a pretty typical 12-year-old kid, apparently. Any facts that don’t fit that depiction should be ignored.

And keep in mind, this is the same Daily Caller that was right about George Zimmerman’s injuries.

Update: John Hayward has more.