I almost wish there were some things the media wasn't allowed to talk about

[Blademaster!]

After over a year, the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case has finally started, and although it is likely a bit premature to be making a thread like this, the whole situation is completely screwed up.

Anyone who has actually been using their brain or knows anything about law that has been actually trying to follow the case without letting their strong emotions get in the way of his/her own ability to think should be aware that the chances of Zimmerman walking are actually pretty high right now. While the initial big blow to the prosceution was the fact that they charged him with 2nd degree murder, the past two days have essentially just been the prosecution's own witnesses destroying themselves, with one getting caught lying under oath on the stand, and the other making such an embarassment of herself that Trayvon's father actually ended up shaking her head at her because of how badly she probably screwed up the prosecutions case, and both of these people were pretty important witnesses (with the latter, Trayvon's girl friend, actually being the key witness to the trial?).

What pisses me off about this is the way the media has portrayed the case and the situation the U.S.A. is possibly facing right now. The amount of media bias revolving around this case is incredible, and there are still people who think George Zimmerman is white because of it, let alone even bother to play around with the thought of him walking. There was even that incident with MSNBC(or CNN?) where they edited out part of a phone recording to portray Zimmerman as racist. As a result, the U.S.A. is now faced with what could possibly be the prelude to the next situation similar to the L.A. riots. In fact, you can already find people on twitter/facebook saying how they are going to riot if Zimmerman walks, and there were some small riots after the incident was made public already.

I don't live in Florida, but the fact that this could, and probably will, happen disgusts me. It honestly makes me think that the media shouldn't be allowed to cover major criminal cases like if this is going to be the result. But this isn't even the only problem. There's the fact that the case got so much publicity that it very likely got in the way of the jury selection. I know at least one person had gotten kicked off the selection because they knew too much about the case, and after being denied, went back to the selection to try and cause a scene. And stuff like this could just happen again in the future.

Regardless, the media still has its right to free speech, though I wish they could at least present information in a way that doesn't stir up the population. Then again, they also can't tell how the people will react to their initial reports. But what could possibly even be the best way to go about this? Is it even possible at all given the arguable corporate greed that news media hold and their quest for better ratings?

[Constable Reggie]

I'd say good goddamned payback if (and likely when) Zimmerman is acquitted. The sheer gall for these idiot prosecutors to overcharge (and more importantly, actually try to get it) for the sake of publicity is ridiculous. The sheer gall for all the news channels to selectively edit the recordings to out Zimmerman is ridiculous. The fact that the prosecution's case is imploding in on itself is delicious irony.

Zimmerman may or may not have killed Martin in self defense, I have no idea, but whatever happened, he doesn't deserve all this bullshit that's happening when the evidence doesn't paint a clear picture of what exactly happened. Charge him with manslaughter like someone with a brain would have done, don't make him out to be what he was made out to be in the edited recordings, and if he's acquitted, fine. If not, equally fine.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Anouleth]

I don't live in Florida, but the fact that this could, and probably will, happen disgusts me. It honestly makes me think that the media shouldn't be allowed to cover major criminal cases like if this is going to be the result. But this isn't even the only problem. There's the fact that the case got so much publicity that it very likely got in the way of the jury selection. I know at least one person had gotten kicked off the selection because they knew too much about the case, and after being denied, went back to the selection to try and cause a scene. And stuff like this could just happen again in the future.

Regardless, the media still has its right to free speech, though I wish they could at least present information in a way that doesn't stir up the population. Then again, they also can't tell how the people will react to their initial reports. But what could possibly even be the best way to go about this? Is it even possible at all given the arguable corporate greed that news media hold and their quest for better ratings?

News media report on issues that people feel passionately about? What a scandal! Obviously we can't allow the news media to ever report on anything controversial!

[Blademaster!]

News media report on issues that people feel passionately about? What a scandal! Obviously we can't allow the news media to ever report on anything controversial!

Did you even read what you quoted, let alone understand the issue here? I honestly expected a better post from you that shows some level of thought, not one that shows next to none.

[Chiki]

Martin most likely did attack Zimmerman (I'll give it a completely arbitrary 80% chance or so). Did you see the stuff on his phone? He was a gangster, involved in drugs and fights and so on.

[Rehab]

I do think it's interesting to think about how the current general quality of reporting could be improved, because by all accounts I've heard, the standards of journalistic integrity have indeed gone way down in the past decades (though to be sure, it would be inaccurate to say they've never been worse, at least for the U.S.) I guess there could be stricter news media regulation, maybe less as much about what can be reported as how, but I'm admittedly at a loss to imagine just how universally sensationalism could be preened from reporting, without enacting potentially harmful censorship and thus creating new problems.

And I assume news media would simply argue they just follow the money (as businesses, etc). Though I don't actually know how profitable it is to report large-scale public events in sensationalistic ways, my assumption is that it wouldn't happen if they weren't at least convinced it did. It sounds like a nice idea to me to have businesses align their interests more in the direction of "providing service for the common good of society" than "shaaaaaareholllllllllder valuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue," but from the bits I've heard, that sounds to me like it'd require a sea change, more than just something specific to news media.

And then there's news media literally owned by national governments, which is the only form I can assume "news as public service" can really take. To which, when presented with all the nationally owned news media to whose existence I have yet been exposed, I can only say;

"Yuck."

Edited June 27, 2013 by Rehab

[Blademaster!]

1. I guess there could be stricter news media regulation, maybe less as much about what can be reported as how, but I'm admittedly at a loss to imagine just how universally sensationalism could be preened from reporting, without enacting potentially harmful censorship and thus creating new problems.

2. And then there's news media literally owned by national governments, which is the only form I can assume "news as public service" can really take. To which, when presented with all the nationally owned news media to whose existence I have yet been exposed, I can only say;

"Yuck."

1. What I imagine, given this situation, as to what the best way to go about it would be A. don't do extensive reports on criminal cases until it goes to trial and B. don't report on issues that you aren't fully aware of and act like something happened when you don't know what happened at all. In the case of this trial, you could find the police report on Zimmerman in the first week it became a national news sensation, and you'd know that Zimmerman got attacked and was beat up. The media didn't even get that until months later, and until then they never even played with the idea that Zimmerman really got attacked at all.

I'm too young to remember most previous high profile court cases, but I think this is kinda what happened with the Casey Anthony trial? It didn't really get to the media until it was on trial, and while that may have been spun by the news media as well, at least when the jurors came out of court and found out how much of a high profile case it had become they had no idea how any of it got so out of control and were capable of giving an unbiased opinion in court.

As for rioting, well, that may just always be unavoidable in cases like these and there may be nothing that can be done other than try and do a better job of educating the populace on the matter at hand.

2. There's not much you can really do about that.

[shadykid]

Martin most likely did attack Zimmerman (I'll give it a completely arbitrary 80% chance or so). Did you see the stuff on his phone? He was a gangster, involved in drugs and fights and so on.

not sure if srs

[Chiki]

In one message, Mr. Martin described himself as “gangsta.” Other text messages refer to his involvement in fights and reveal an interest in guns, including an exchange about possibly buying one, referring to it as a .380.

Earlier, in a separate text, he asked whether a friend had a gun.

“U gotta gun?” he asked the friend on Feb. 18, 2012. His friend replied, “It my mommy but she buy for me.”

“She let u hold it?” Mr. Martin asked. “Yea,” the friend replied. “But she keep it,” Mr. Martin said. “Yea,” the friend texted back.

Mr. Martin, 17, also texted that he smoked marijuana, which was revealed in toxicology reports. At one point, he mentioned that he had it wrapped up for the bus ride from Miami, where he lived, to Orlando, where he was going to stay with his father for a while during his suspension from school in February 2012.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/us/zimmermans-lawyers-release-text-messages-of-trayvon-martin.html?_r=0

Edited June 27, 2013 by Chiki

[Original Alear]

Considering that there's so much news online nowadays, I don't really see that abridgement of a free press by government could easily move forward, unless the public which you seem to also be disappointed in felt the same way.

As for the motivation for doing so, I figure people sometimes look to the media as a way of affirming what they already believe, rather than a way of finding out what to believe. M-maybe.

Edited June 27, 2013 by SeverIan

[Steampunk]

I understand your frustration, but we all need to appreciate what the media is (and more importantly, what it isn't). MSNBC, CNN, HLN...all of these are businesses. They're interested in viewership first, and facts second. Thing is, the (real) news is boring. When I was in school, I had to use academic journals on IAFF to write reports. They contain a lot of information, and some of it isn't the most exciting thing to look through. If you want facts though, there is no better place to look. Problem is, you can't make interesting television out of facts alone (the Discovery Channel is living proof). By sensationalizing it, dramatizing it, and making it more like a TV show, people are more likely to tune in, thus more money for tv networks. Same deal with newspapers and blogs: you have to make it appealing or people won't want to bother reading after a long day at work.

Part of making the content appealing is understanding the audience you are trying to reach and knowing what they like. This is why MSNBC and Fox News have very different attitudes on the same issues. Each knows who watches their networks, and tweaks their programming to appeal to them. What this all boils down to is a business trying to keep their regular customers happy. The news doesn't educate viewers so much as entertain them. It's that way by design, and likely isn't going to change no matter what kind of limitations are put on the topics they can address. I can handle that, personally. What pisses me off more than anything with the media is the so called "analysis" where news companies try to give the masses arguments that justify their attitudes towards policies or events. I think this nonsense is tantamount to brainwashing, as the media essentially presents shallow arguments that tow the party line to the masses in an effort to cement their viewership. Problem is, people start believing some of this rationalization and we end up with intellectual revolutionaries like the Birthers. Ugh.

[Constable Reggie]

With everything that I said about the Zimmerman case, I don't think news media should be restricted from reporting what they want, how they want, regardless of how horrific the reporting turns out to be. iirc, Zimmerman filed a defamation suit against them for their spin on the stories, and was also able to get quite a sum of donations due to their actions. I have no doubt that they'll likely settle out of case and Zimmerman will get some kind of reparation for what they did. You gotta counter human nature with more human nature, not simply restrict it because feelings could be hurt.

And if this causes riots or whatever, well, fuck em. Idiots will be idiots.

Edited June 27, 2013 by Constable Reggie

[Anouleth]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/us/zimmermans-lawyers-release-text-messages-of-trayvon-martin.html?_r=0

Precisely. Marijuana smokers are notoriously violent and unpredictable, unlike peaceful, law-abiding alcohol drinkers. And he's interested in guns too! Probably a crazy republican gun nut. Man, the government needs to do more to crack down on marijuana smokers and gun aficionados. That's only like, what, 95% of the population of America anyway.

Did you even read what you quoted, let alone understand the issue here? I honestly expected a better post from you that shows some level of thought, not one that shows next to none.

Basically, you think that people's right to free speech is not unlimited, and should be restricted in cases where the subject matter is controversial and might incite people to violence... such as, to take a TOTALLY RANDOM example, a pastor publicly burning religious holy texts.

[Blademaster!]

iirc, Zimmerman filed a defamation suit against them for their spin on the stories, and was also able to get quite a sum of donations due to their actions.

Really? I never heard anything about it actually going to court yet and I'm surprised that would get done before this trial.

Basically, you think that people's right to free speech is not unlimited, and should be restricted in cases where the subject matter is controversial and might incite people to violence... such as, to take a TOTALLY RANDOM example, a pastor publicly burning religious holy texts.

That's one of the things I pointed out, and in a way, things like this already in exist in society anyway as social taboos (i.e. saying nigger, threatening to burn religious texts like you mentioned which is also a big problem) and in the case of inciting riots, you can't do something like yell fire in a movie theater when there isn't one. For what I'm trying to get at really with that point though, is more in line with what Dieselpunk was getting at, but trying to make the news more fact based and less entertainment based won't really cut it given the current news environment. But like I said before, the news media still isn't really at fault for this since at the end of the day, they can't 100% predict how popular a news story will actually end up being or how people will react and at best try and spin things so as to get more ratings. I just wish there was something that could be done to stop this from happening, but rioters will just end up rioting anyway.

The other point at hand is an actual real problem; pre-trial publicity. Garnaring this much attention to a criminal case pre trial is a problem and will certainly cause problems with the trial and jury selection processes in the future. The girl who got caught lying under oath and the guy who got kicked out of the jury selection processes are both examples of this, where the former's problem has likely hurt the prosecution's case and the latter causing problems in the jury selection process. In the near future, if incidents like this keep happening, I really won't be surprised if there is some kind of regulation when it comes to how the media is allowed to go about reporting crimes before trial if things are going to get this out of hand. But then this is also why I brought up the Casey Anthony case in another post because I can't think of any other trials that had a similar precedent to this one, where they garnered lots of attention before actually going to trial and still ended up being a trial by jury.

[shadykid]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/us/zimmermans-lawyers-release-text-messages-of-trayvon-martin.html?_r=0

interested in guns and violence, must be predisposed to committing violent acts

shit, time to lock up a significant majority of the American population

Edited June 28, 2013 by shadykid

[SRC]

Honestly, the justice system has bigger problems that one court case out of very many having a maybe biased jury because the media may or may not be leaning towards Zimmerman's side or Martin's side. This is more of an indictment of American news media. Race? Guns? Potential manslaughter? Who cares about Syria when we can hear about newsbites like TRAYVON MARTIN SMOKED MARIJUANA and GOT SUSPENDED FOR IT?

The amount of media bias revolving around this case is incredible, and there are still people who think George Zimmerman is white because of it,

That's because people from both sides are obsessed with the fact that Trayvon Martin is black.

Edited June 28, 2013 by SRC

[Constable Reggie]

Really? I never heard anything about it actually going to court yet and I'm surprised that would get done before this trial.

I worded it poorly in a hasty edit, the two things are separate. I'm assuming that Zimmerman was able to get all the donations he did because of the publicity given to him by the idiot news channels; simultaneously, he's also suing them for defamation.

[shadykid]

Who cares about Syria when we can hear about newsbites like TRAYVON MARTIN SMOKED MARIJUANA and GOT SUSPENDED FOR IT?

I don't know man, Syria is gonna be pretty shitty either way

[Chiki]

You conveniently ignored the part where he said he was involved in fights.

Which one is more likely to start the fight now?

[SRC]

You conveniently ignored the part where he said he was involved in fights.

Which one is more likely to start the fight now?

I dunno man, that Zimmerman guy had issues with domestic violence he might be likely to start a fight too!

Or, we can stop pretending we know the character of people we have never met and let the court decide what actually happened instead of speculating on what might have happened.

[Chiki]

I dunno man, that Zimmerman guy had issues with domestic violence he might be likely to start a fight too!

Or, we can stop pretending we know the character of people we have never met and let the court decide what actually happened instead of speculating on what might have happened.

My bad. I didn't know it was against the rules to speculate on what happened.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

edit: whoops

Edited June 28, 2013 by I have a Dragon Boner

[SRC]

My bad. I didn't know it was against the rules to speculate on what happened.

It's not "against the rules" so much as it does not actually solve anything.

[Chiki]

It's not "against the rules" so much as it does not actually solve anything.

So what? Why only do things when they solve other things? We can still speculate because we're thinking beings.

[Constable Reggie]

I think Zimmerman started the fight and shot him because he wanted to because he's white and Martin was black.