October 4, 2012

New York Post
Accused Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman is preparing a lawsuit against NBC, NBC News President Steve Capus and correspondent Ron Allen, the New York Post’s Page Six reports.

A source tells us, “The suit will be filed imminently against NBC and its news executives. The network’s legal department has put everybody in the news department involved with this incident on notice, telling them not to comment.”

Poynter has confirmed that NBC is not commenting in this matter.

NBC broadcast three reports using audio edited to make it appear Zimmerman said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.” The first report was produced by WTVJ in Miami, which fired reporter Jeff Burnside, who was involved in editing it. “Today” broadcast a report apparently influenced by WTVJ’s that edited the audio the same way; reporter Lilia Luciano lost her job with the network after that. The Allen report was broadcast after those two, and apparently used the same audio track as the second.

Correction: NBC’s Miami affiliate is WTVJ not WTVR as this post originally stated.

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Andrew Beaujon reported on the media for Poynter from 2012 to 2015. He was previously arts editor at TBD.com and managing editor of Washington City…
Andrew Beaujon

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