So while a few people are getting their tights in a wad about race, I think it’s time to open the real discussion in the Trayvon Martin case:  Why did the media repeatedly and continuously misrepresent and manipulate the facts in the George Zimmerman self-defense trial?

Why did NBC and other news outlets edit the portion of the Zimmerman police dispatch call so, instead of the dispatcher asking him what race the suspect was (and Zimmerman giving a how-should-I-know pause then saying, “He looks black.”)

Why has no one in the media mentioned that gated communities, like the Retreats at Twin Lakes, do not have public thoroughfares. You can’t put a gate across a public road.  The streets and common walkways are owned and maintained by the community, and yes, that makes them private property.  Martin was a guest of a community resident, which allowed him certain, limited access to community amenities, but he was not “gunned down on a public street” as has been presented.

Why do the media keep presenting a picture of a 12- or 13-year-old Martin and not a more recent picture?  Admittedly, he still has a baby face in the more recent photos, but positioning a posed photo of a twelve-year-old next to a mug shot is just manipulative.

A young man is dead, and another young man (Zimmerman was only 29) will probably never get his life back.  I’m not going to stir the pot on guilty or not.  I just want to know why the media ginned up a tragic story into a national nightmare of misrepresentation?

PS:  As a balance, Fox, Hannity, whoever else, please stop muddying the waters with your info that Skittles and Arizona Tea are two of the ingredients in some bizarre cheapass high school drug.  Who gives a shit?  If he was planning to make the crap (and I’m not saying he was, if the stuff exists), it still has no immediate bearing on the case.