Media Malpractice

The Trayvon Martin episode has now reached the point where the story about the story is rivaling the original story.

If you have trouble following that mangled syntax, what I'm trying to say is that the media's botched coverage of the incident and subsequent developments has become so egregious that it has become its own story.

Coverage of media coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting has now fully separated from the actual events of February 26, 2012, and become a separate story in its own right, as have political attempts to manipulate perceptions of the case.  Two important updates on the media front:

First, NBC News has launched an “internal investigation” of how a heavily edited version of the audio from George Zimmerman’s 911 call on the March 27 broadcast of the “Today” show.  The same “mistake” was made in a written transcript published at MSNBC.com.

It should be a fairly short “internal investigation,” because the brass just needs to figure out who decided to edit the following conversation between Zimmerman and the dispatcher:

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.

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

ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.

… into this: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good… he looks black.”  As deceptive edits go, it’s rather clumsy, isn’t it?  Not to mention grossly irresponsible, given the volatile situation surrounding the Sanford case.

Of course, NBC has a long and proud tradition of selectively editing their 'news' programs to reflect their world-view. Remember the faked GM pickup fires?

In 1993 (a NBC spokesman) admitted "NBC had misled viewers when it showed a simulated crash in which a gas tank on the G.M. truck exploded into flames ... in its apology Tuesday night, the network cited its use of an incendiary device to ignite an explosion and its failure to inform the viewers about the device.

Returning to the present day and the Trayvon Martin story:

Meanwhile, ABC News manufactured a “scoop” last week by releasing edited video from the Sanford Police Department, ostensibly “proving” that Zimmerman didn’t have any visible injuries.  Since Zimmerman claims to have been physically assaulted by Trayvon Martin, a lack of injuries would do some damage to his story.

But ABC not only failed to remind its readers that Zimmerman was treated by paramedics at the scene of Martin’s death – a well-established hard fact documented in police reports.  They also used an on-screen graphic to obscure Zimmerman’s head at a crucial moment in their “big scoop” video clip.  Without this graphic, viewers can see a rather large gash on the back of Zimmerman’s head, which is totally consistent with his story, and completely destroys the action line for ABC’s “reporting.”  The video loudly touted as showing no injuries did, in fact, depict what appears to be a significant injury.

Lo and behold, ABC News has now produced an “enhanced” version of the security camera video, and whaddya know – it’s another sizzling-hot blockbuster scoop, which just happens to completely erase the previous scoop, because after more “enhancement and re-digitization” than Disney deployed to create Tron:Legacy, it turns out ABC’s sharp-eyed analysts can see that scar too!

Thus, ABC News claims to have “revealed for the first time” what everyone who didn’t fall for their earlier “scoop” could easily see with their own eyes, by viewing the unedited security tape.  Maybe a sufficiently loud cry of “Whoops!” will make an internal investigation unnecessary.

So far CBS hasn't been caught doctoring transcripts or altering recordings, but given its track record, it's probably only a matter of time. After all, during the 2004 presidential election they produced bogus memos purporting to show irregularities in George W. Bush's national Guard service records.

Dan Rather admitted he'd been chasing the story for five years--proof that there was something in George W. Bush's National Guard record that would convince people not to vote for him.  

That fiasco resulted in the memorable statement uttered by CBS in its defense that the memos were "fake, but accurate."

Even Walter Cronkite would be embarrassed by that one.

Gosh, if you can't trust NBC, ABC, and CBS, who can you trust?

The Big Lie - Big Oil Version

It is often said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will begin to believe it. Obama and his flunkies in the media have mastered this technique. Case in point: the myth that energy companies are reaping billions of dollars in government subsidies.

Listen to any liberal or democrat. Read any paper. Watch any news broadcast or talking heads opinion show. The story is remarkably similar. Big Oil is raping the American taxpayer, enjoying record profits while receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, all resulting from a massive lobbying campaign.

The only problem with this narrative is that none of it is true.

First, start with the definition of "subsidy." In economic terms it is "A payment from government to individuals or businesses without any expectations of production."

That definitely describes the solar, wind, electric car, and ethanol industries. But it's a far cry from oil and natural gas production. There, we are talking about the tax code, not government handouts. Here are the tax treatments targeted by democrats.

Domestic manufacturing tax deduction -- $1.7 B.  This is a tax deduction given to every manufacturer in the US.  Per CNN, it was "designed to keep factories in the United States."  If that deduction were eliminated for oil companies only, it would mean singling out oil companies from all other manufacturers.

Percentage depletion allowance -- $1 B.  Any industry can write down a portion of the cost of its capital equipment as part of the cost of doing business.  Right now, oil in the ground is treated as capital equipment.  Again, this "subsidy" amounts to how the cost of doing business is defined.  All companies get it, not just oil companies.

Foreign tax credit -- $850 million.  Companies get credit for taxes they pay to other countries.  All companies get this "subsidy," not just oil companies.  Should a company pay tax on tax?  Should only oil companies pay tax on tax?

Intangible drilling costs -- $780 million.  According to CNN, "[a]ll industries get to write off the costs of doing business, but they must take it over the life of an investment. The oil industry gets to take the drilling credit in the first year."  Among these four tax "breaks," this smallest one was the only one that treated oil companies differently.

The above address taxes that are not collected from the oil companies. What about actual tax payments?

Exxon recently released its first quarter results for 2011.  The number grabbing the headlines was Exxon's profit: $10.65 billion in a single quarter.  The number not given quite as much exposure was the taxes it paid in that same quarter:  $8 billion, or 42% of income before taxes.

And what does Exxon do with all that money it has left after paying $8 B in taxes?  It put $7.8 billion into capital and exploration, as part of its plans "to invest between $33 billion and $37 billion per year over the next five years to develop new energy supplies."

In any other industry, that would be called "research and development."  Exxon is plowing 73% of its after-tax profits back into R&D.  Who would be better at spending $4 billion of energy companies' earnings in an attempt to provide our energy in the future: the energy companies or Obama's energy czar?

But there is at least one member of the Big Oil club that gets subsidies from the U.S. government. Any idea which one?

It's Petrobras, the state-owned Brazilian oil company.

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met ... with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

A few more tidbits:

• The amount of earnings not collected in taxes is about $4.3 billion per year -- about 0.2% of this year's deficit and enough to fund about 10 hours of current US government spending.
• A full $3.55 billion of that amount (82%) is due to the way taxes are treated for all industries or manufacturers.  To change these tax laws only for oil companies would require singling them out among all industries for special mistreatment.
• The only tax in which the oil industry seems to get special treatment compared to other industrids is intangible drilling costs.  The amount of that subsidy?  That would be $0.78 billion per year -- enough to fund less than two hours of federal spending in 2011, and not even half the amount we are lending a foreign-owned and state-owned oil company for drilling offshore Brazil.
• Oil companies already pay tax rates of 40-50% of income.

As for the notion that Big Oil gets special treatment because of its massive army of lobbyists, consider this.

... the Oil & Gas industry ranked only 19th in the amount of money contributed to politicians in the 2008 election cycle: $17.7 million.  Who was number one?  Lawyers, who contributed $126.9 million, or over seven times as much as the Oil & Gas industry.  The Education lobby gave $37.4 million, more than twice as much as Oil & Gas.

Of course, lawyers and teachers unions are obama allies, so the lapdog media would never report that fact.

One final point, again unreported - nay, buried - by obama's lackeys in the MSM:

According to the DOE's Energy Information Administration, every time you fill up your gas tank, more of your money goes to taxes than goes to refining costs and profits combined.

Facts are such inconvenient things when you're trying to spin a story...

Don't Confuse Revenge With Justice

I was going to stay out of the whole Trayvon Martin controversy. After all, there’s been so much written and said about that sad incident. What do I have to add that hasn’t already been said by others? But the uproar not only continued, but intensified. The cries for George Zimmerman’s head on a pike got louder, while at the same time more details leaked out that indicated perhaps we haven’t heard the whole story.

So I thought maybe I’d just toss out a little reminder to withhold judgment until all the facts are in. Didn’t we see the folly of leaping to conclusions in the Richard Jewell affair (he was the security guard at the Atlanta Olympics who was first hailed as a hero for finding a bomb in the Olympic Park, then accused and convicted by the media as the bomber, only to be later exonerated)?

Or the rape accusations against the Duke lacrosse team? (A black woman claimed to have been raped by three white Duke students. The media took the story and ran with it, proclaiming it a hate crime. Later, of course, it turned out that the woman falsely accused the students, and the prosecutor ended up being disbarred for legal and ethical violations in his zeal to convict the students.)

Or, more recently, the Jared Loughner case? (Loughner shot former U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others at a rally in Arizona. The media immediately linked the shooting to ‘uncivil’ conservative rhetoric. Once again, after further investigation, the facts indicated otherwise. Loughner was a mentally troubled person who, if anything, had liberal leanings.)

So I figured I could be a voice of reason, suggesting that we sit back and let cooler heads prevail. Politicians and special interest groups would stand back and let the investigation proceed. The truth will come out and justice will prevail.

Yeah, right … and unicorns will jump over the rainbow.

Just as in the Duke and Loughner cases, the leftists and their allies in the media have no interest in justice. All they care about is politicizing this whole tragic affair for their own gain.

Don’t believe that last statement? Check out the following.

An obama stooge masquerading as an alleged MSNBC journalist blamed the shooting on the Koch brothers, the NRA, and other assorted conservative groups.

And speaking of MSNBC, we all know they are to obama as Monica was to Bill Clinton. But this time, they’ve outdone themselves. MSNBC altered the 911 call George Zimmerman made. Here’s MSNBC’s version:

"This guy looks like he’s up to no good … He looks black."

Here’s the actual full quote.

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.

Makes a big difference, doesn't it. It goes from making it sound like Zimmerman is biased or profiling blacks to showing that he was simply responding to a question from the police dispatcher. That goes way beyond journalistic license and ventures into deliberately twisting a quote to misrepresent the truth.

Finally, we have the obama campaign peddling official “obama 2012” hoodies. They hit the market on March 26, just days after the shooting.

Despicable? Certainly. Coincidence? I think not.

So if I did have something to add to this whole mess, it would be this one simple statement: Revenge and Justice are not the same thing.

Everyone wants (or should want) justice in this case. But so many people are out for revenge that it is frightening – especially when they don’t even know all the facts.

That sounds an awful lot like a lynching. Given the racial circumstances of this case, the irony is obvious.

It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Here's a few pictures that speak volumes, along with links to sites that have commentary worthy of your attention.

(H/T Day by Day)

(H/T Peter)

(H/T Hope-N-Change)