Race Issues

MSNBC's initial -- not to mention its ongoing -- reaction to acquittal of George Zimmerman on charges of second degree murder and manslaughter was predictably heavily focused on race and laden with melodramatic hand-wringing. But it may be anchor Chris Jansing who took the cake in early Sunday morning coverage when she asserted that pre-teen boys were "crawling into bed" with their parents in…

On Monday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie suggested to MSNBC host and National Action Network president Al Sharpton that the trial of Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman was not racially charged enough: "Do you think the prosecutors missed an opportunity there, that they didn't explicitly make this case about racial profiling?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump…

As NewsBusters has been reporting the past 24 hours, the media have been having a hard time hiding their disappointment about the George Zimmerman verdict. Showing what side she's on in this debate, CNN's Candy Crowley on Sunday's State of the Union asked Governor Pat Quinn (D-Ill.), "Do you think that the American justice system is innately racist?" (video follows with transcript and…

Now that he has successfully defended himself from criminal charges brought against him by the state of Florida for the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman is going to resume a lawsuit he filed several months earlier against NBC News. Launched in the midst of the state prosecution against him by a separate civil team, the lawsuit is a defamation claim alleging that NBC…

Last night, just before the stroke of 10, a jury of his peers found George Zimmerman not guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter. He is a free man — sort of. If you’re wondering about the qualification, the Associated Press sheds some light on it:

As NewsBusters has been reporting, the liberal media are out in force Sunday expressing their disgust with the George Zimmerman verdict. On ABC's This Week, PBS's Tavis Smiley had the nerve to say, "I think this for many Americans, George, just another piece of evidence of the incontrovertible contempt that this nation often shows and displays for black men" (video follows with transcript and…

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Jesse Jackson condemned the Zimmerman verdict as a "tremendous miscarriage of justice."  It is a mark of Jackson's misconception of just what constitutes justice that chief among his complaints was that Trayvon Martin was denied a jury of his peers because there were no African-Americans or men on it. But—as Jackson is apparently unaware—the Constitution…

On Friday’s Morning Edition, NPR “Code Switch” blogger Gene Demby (exploring the "frontiers of race, culture, and ethnicity") was brought on to discuss the Zimmerman trial. For his blog at NPR.org,  he had written that trials like this are “lousy proxies for fights over big, messy social issues” like racial profiling. But in making this point, Demby highlighted his point unintentionally. He…

Late this afternoon, an anchor at Oakland TV station KTVU unfortunately read four offensive and insensitive mock Asian-sounding names and identified them as the pilots of Asiana Flight 214, which crash landed at San Franscisco Airport last weekend. A third crash victim died today. While the station deserves plenty of blame for failing to catch the obviously phony names before airing them, at…

This week, instead of attacking a Hispanic senator, Marco Rubio, I will defend a Hispanic citizen, George Zimmerman, on trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin. (Zimmerman would make a better senator.) It's becoming painfully obvious why no charges were brought against Zimmerman in this case -- until Al Sharpton got involved. All the eyewitness accounts, testimony, ballistics and forensics…

“Amos ‘n’ Andy” was so controversial that in 1951 the NAACP demanded it be taken off the air for its derogatory portrayal of blacks.  By 1966, the NAACP won a victory by stopping the show’s reruns from airing. But at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Saturday morning forum this week, “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was back in fashion.  Chicago talk show personality Cliff Kelley emceed a panel discussion. …

No wonder Dan Abrams left MSNBC . . . The former legal analyst at the "Lean Forward" network, now at ABC, expressed an opinion this morning that would surely be unwelcome at his former shop.   Guest-hosting on Good Morning America, Abrams opined that as a legal matter "I don't see how a jury convicts" George Zimmerman of murder or manslaughter.  Abrams sees too much reasonable doubt in the…

As NewsBusters reported yesterday, CNN guest Tim Wise accused the Supreme Court of racism, saying they "basically called 40 million black folks that [N-word] without saying it" through their rulings on the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action. Then on Tuesday night, Wise tried to sidestep his words and claim he didn't "exactly" say that, although he did "exactly" say that. "That was what…