Unnerved by an unspoken mix of political bias and racial queasiness, the major media have chosen to know as little about Trayvon Martin as they know about Barack Obama.
As a case in point, consider this boy vs. man fable spun by the New York Times' Charles Blow:
A boy's blood had been spilled on a rain-soaked patch of grass behind a row of mustard-colored condominiums by a man who had pursued him against the advice of 911 dispatchers. That man carried a 9-millimeter handgun. The boy carried a bag of candy.
Blow was writing seven weeks after Trayvon's death. He had no excuse for missing the actual story. Worse, since he is a writer for the Times, his reporting has helped set the media tone worldwide
The media's willful ignorance was on display again this past week. In reporting this news of George Zimmerman's return to jail, more than a few media outlets showed the dangerously deceptive image of Trayvon as 11-year-old cherub. They did so in the assumption that the narrative was still theirs to control. It is not. The blogs, which have been doing the real detective work on this case, have long since taken control away from them.
The sites I have found must useful are the Daily Caller and conservativetreehouse.com. What follows is largely culled from those sites and their independent contributors. By probing Trayon's background and parsing his social media chatter, they have put together a picture of a disturbed young man that begins to makes sense of the events that unfolded on that fateful rainy night of February 26.
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Trayvon Martin is seen on the security video through the 7-11 window approaching the store from the direction of the Retreat at Twin Lakes. He had been staying there at the townhouse of his father's girlfriend, Brandy Green. In major media accounts, the helpful Trayvon ventured out in the rain in a mile-plus round trip to buy Brandy's 14-year-old son, Chad, some Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea. Not likely.
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