Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Michael Thompson seemed to have a nice scoop on his hands when he scored an interview with the brother of George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin, over a racially charged image he tweeted:
The older brother of George Zimmerman, the man accused of killing Trayvon Martin, says a controversial Twitter posting comparing Martin with an alleged baby killer was his attempt to correct the establishment media’s false portrayal of the Florida teen in the racially charged case.
Robert Zimmerman, who spoke with WND in an exclusive interview, ignited a firestorm of debate on the Internet when he juxtaposed a Facebook photo of the 17-year-old Martin flipping off the camera alongside a Facebook photo of alleged killer DeMarquise Elkins, also 17, doing the same.
[...]
Robert Zimmerman argues that the Facebook photo was Martin’s “digital footprint,” the “way he wanted to be portrayed.”
“He knew he was doing when he took that picture and posted it to social media,” Zimmerman said.
“I did something on social media, and now I’m in trouble. That’s fair game. But look what Trayvon Martin had posted – an image that the media actively hid. Why isn’t that fair game? That was his self-portrayal, which is the most ethical way to portray him,” said Zimmerman.
[...]
“The way he is portrayed by attorneys and media strategists is the way we are introduced to him – a picture of Trayvon Martin skiing when he is in the eighth grade is not the person [my brother] encountered in February 2012,” he said.
“More than a year after the incident, the media still uses flattering images of Trayvon Martin as the person who George Zimmerman encountered. We thought the media would do its job, and that Travyon Martin 2.0 would emerge.”
If Robert Zimmerman was unrepentant in his WND interview, he was much less so a few hours after Thompson's article was posted, when he appeared on CNN:
Speaking on CNN's Piers Morgan Live on Wednesday night, he apologized for the messages, saying they weren't the "right thing to do."
"I realize those were controversial and offensive and I did publicly apologize for them," he said. "I'm a human being. I'm being upfront about what I did. I made a mistake ... Unfortunately (it) may not have helped George."
CNN added that George Zimmerman's lawyer has furiously been trying to distance his client from Robert:
Attorney Mark O'Mara told CNN's "Starting Point" Thursday morning that Robert Zimmerman doesn't represent his brother or his defense.
"Having said that, I'm not sure where (Robert's) heart was, but I've always said for the past year that we have to have a conversation about race, and the Zimmerman case has brought it to the forefront, particularly the way young black males are treated in the system," O'Mara said. "These type of tweets ... were insensitive to that, and quite honestly are the opposite of what I hope the conversation would be to try and figure out what's wrong with the system and maybe a good way to fix it."
O'Mara said he worries about how Robert Zimmerman's tweets will affect George's case.
"Everything that happens in this case is, if not overblown, hyper-focused upon, so that everything that George says or does is important," O'Mara said "... And certainly when a family member of my client says something that comes across as totally insensitive -- if not much, much worse -- (it) has an effect, and now we have to deal with it."
Robert Zimmerman did a nice job of playing into WND's race-baiting efforts to portray every black person as a mob-prone thug, only to change his tune in a TV appearance. Will WND report his flip-flop?
