Jacob Sullum does not weary of pointing out the paper’s repeated misreporting about the “Stand Your Ground” principle, misreporting not unrelated to the efforts of campaigners from the Legal Left who have sought to wring ideological advantage from the Martin-Zimmerman case.
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The NYT is fundamentally wrong?
In other news, the Pacific Ocean announced today that it is wet.
Most of the major news organizations in Florida have been fundamentally wrong on almost everything in this case, and fundamentally biased. Local stations and newspapers still run the color picture of a charming, probably 12 year old Trayvon, right beside a B/W menacing picture of Zimmerman. Certainly no bias there.
On the other hand, the provision of the law that says that any force used against a trespasser is conclusively presumed to be lawful is insane. Technically, if a 2-year-old girl wanders into your house in Florida, it’s lawful to attack her with an ax.
I completely flipped on the Trayvon Martin thing, and now hope Zimmerman will be acquitted. Part of the problem was the early news reporting was horrible! (One of the worst stories wasn’t in the Times, it was the Washington post who reported that Zimmerman had a “Jewish sounding name” (http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-03-22/lifestyle/35446691_1_george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin-unarmed-black-teenager) (For the record, there’s nothing really “Jewish” about that name, and his family isn’t at all Jewish.
“Martin” on the other hand _is_ a Jewish name, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_%28name%29#Spain ).
Of course, many African American bloggers started blaming “the Jews” for this, even though there’s absolutely nothing at all do do with anything Jewish about this case at all.
The media certainly seems to have made up its mind who they want you to support(well, most media). Even in Canada, you only ever see that picture of a 12 year old Trayvon. They dont want you thinking that the ‘victim’ could possibly have been someone quite capable or beating the crap out of Zimmerman.