Category Archives: Criminally Stupid

I’ve gotten out of the habit of tuning in to evening cable news shows, but I flipped on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell last night in time to catch him dressing down Rene Stutzman, a reporter for The Orlando Sentinel who covered the leak of George Zimmerman’s statement to police.

For more coverage of the Trayvon Martin case, here’s a link to all Angry Black Lady posts with that tag.

I was astonished as O’Donnell began to ream Stutzman, apparently quoting her story in the Sentinel.

O’DONNELL: Rene, I want to ask you about some lines in your story today that are presented as fact, and I don’t understand why they’re presented as fact. You say, “Zimmerman was on his way to the grocery store when he spotted Trayvon walking through his gated community.” Now, others have said that he was on a community watch thing. You don’t say that Zimmerman says that. You don’t say that police told you that. You just report it as fact as if you know exactly what Zimmerman was doing. You don’t know that.

STUTZMAN: I think you’re misreading the story –

O’DONNELL: No, I’m reading –

STUTZMAN: — High in the story, it says –

O’DONNELL: — I’m going to quote you again. “Zimmerman was on his way to the grocery store when he spotted Trayvon walking through his gated community.” You don’t attribute that to anyone, except your own knowledge.

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