NY Times Zimmerman edit vicious online, worse in print edition. Jayson Blair started with a few mistakes, too

NY Times edit of dispatcher transcript allows the world to believe Zimmerman volunteered that Trayvon Martin

• "looked Black," or was "in a gray hoodie, looked Black." Not true.

4/3/12, "NYT Zimmerman Edit Even Worse in Print Edition," Breitbart, Big Journalism, Joel B. Pollak " "After Breitbart.com pointed out yesterday that the New York Times had joined NBC and MSNBC in selectively editing George Zimmerman's 911 call to make him look like a racist, a reader emailed us to note that the misleading edit was even worse in some print editions of the newspaper.

Here is the 911 call transcript:

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. And this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?

ZIMMERMAN: He looks black.

And here is what the Times reported--online:

"“Hey, we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood,” Mr. Zimmerman said to start the conversation with the dispatcher. “And there’s a real suspicious guy.”

This guy seemed to be up to no good; like he was on drugs or something; in a gray hoodie. Asked to describe him further, he said, “He looks black.”"

Now--here is what the Times reported in some print editions (emphasis added below, scanned image above):

• "“Hey, we’ve had some break-ins in my neighborhood,” Mr. Zimmerman said to start the conversation with the dispatcher. And there's a real suspicious guy.

• This guy seemed to be up to no good; like he was on drugs or something; in a gray hoodie; looked black. "Now he's just staring at me," he [Zimmerman] said."

The selective edit in the print edition (not repeated, apparently, in all editions) is worse than the online edit, because it omits any hint of a question from the dispatcher, suggesting that Zimmerman simply volunteered the information that Trayvon Martin "looked black."

The Times has not yet issued a correction or apology."

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4/2/12, "New York Times Repeats NBC Smear With Selective Edit of Zimmerman 911 Call," Breitbart, Big Journalism, Joel B. Pollak

"Today's front-page article in the New York Times on the Trayvon Martin case repeated NBC's attempt to cast George Zimmerman as a racist by selectively editing his 911 call."

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• 12/10/04, "Jayson Blair: A Case Study of What Went Wrong at The New York Times," PBS.org, NewsHourOnline

"On May 1, 2003, 27-year-old New York Times reporter Jayson Blair resigned amidst charges that he plagiarized a story about the family of an American soldier in Iraq.

A scar on the reputation of one of the country's most influential newspapers, the Blair scandal launched a massive internal review of The Times' hiring, management and reporting practices and led to a staff shake-up ending with the resignation of two of the paper's top editors....

After several more mistakes, poor evaluations and a period of leave during which Blair was said to be dealing with "personal problems," a memo sent by Landman, warned management "to stop Jayson from writing for The New York Times. Right now."

The memo resulted in a short suspension from deadline writing but failed to get Blair fired. In 2002, Blair was promoted to the national desk to cover the Washington, D.C.-area sniper shootings, according to the report released by the Siegal committee."...

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3/31/12, Updated 4/3, NBC admits editing error on Zimmerman tape

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