that said that trayvon was witnessed on top of george zimmerman punching him and beating his head into the cement. >> are the media inflaming the situation? a miami harrold reporter on the pressures of covering the story. >> all at once i started getting emails from all these people telling me that i was a racist, that i was a sobero path, that i should kill myself. >> day yeah view. current t fires keith olbermann for missing work, and he suggests owner al gore is unethical, and his replacement? eliot spitzer. plus -- >> what speemp did you listen to? >> just right here. >> stop lying. would you guys quit distorting what i'm saying? >> rick santorum curses out a "new york times" reporter. what did jeb zellany do to deserve this? i'm hourt kurtz, and this is reliable sources. reporters dug up new information this week in the killing of trayvon martin. renee of the orlando sentinel obtained the controversial account of what george zimmerman told police in florida that he had been accosted by the teenager. >> the two exchanged words that trayvon struck a blow, punched george zimmerman in the nose, and that floored mr. zimmerman. >> but that account and one of the miami herald ahead, seen only to harden the idealogical divide in the coverage. when you turn on msnbc, it's like watching the prosecution. any guest sympathetic to the neighborhood watch captain being grilled and even badgered. >> he was walking with skittles and an iced tea when he was shot dead. now we're seeing new pictures of trayvon and they're trying to portrait him as a thug. >> and there seems to be a right wing media campaign to defend george zimmerman. >> how are you paying your expenses iffure not working? is someone paying you to do this for george? >> no. no one is paying me to do this for george. >> have you ever heard george zimmerman scream? >> what is the point of you asking me questions if you're not giving me an opportunity to answer? okay? >> answer the question. >> and as far as george raising his voice, yeah, i have heard him raise his voice before. >> scream. >> not in anger. not in anger. >> scream? >> would you -- you know what, this -- why are we having this discussion if you're not listening? if you're not listening to my answers? >> fox news is not like watching the zimmerman defense with considerable skepticism towards trayvon martin's side. >> this was described in the beginning as being shot in cold blood. >> this was never portrayed in the media as being a fight. this was portrayed as a cold-blooded murder. >> zimmerman's side is saying that george zimmerman told his father that, in fact, he was walking back to the car and it was trayvon who confronted him and threatened him and broke his nose and put these lacerations in the back of the head. are you denying that that is a possibility? >> let me take you back. okay? >> no, no, you can take me back, but is that a possibility that trayvon broke his nose and pounded his head into the cement? is that possible? >> well, it's quite possible because he was the one that instigated the incident when he got out of the vehicle, out of the advice and became a vigilante. he started the fight with trayvon. >> is the media coverage starting to deepen the polarization surround this tragedy? joining us now in boston cally crossley, host on wgbh radio, and here in washington frank sesno, director of the school of media and community afardz and the create or and host of "planet ford." frank, what do you make of the way you saw those clips, many at msnbc and fox news have blat aptly chosen sides in this case. >> welcome to the sausage factory. we've season the deep dive into the deep end of all the problems and issues in history we've got with race in this country, and people are choosing sides. the perfect storm is that the media have chosen sides with fox on one side. virtually all issues on the other. they've just got to stake out their claims and their territory. it's one upsman ship with the outrage now. the problem is that the real journalism of this story is getting short changed. the real journalism is what happened. that's not what they're -- what those conversations are engaging in. what happened? >> even when the journalists attempt to provide information, for example, abc obtaining the police video after he was arrested and people who don't -- who think he is the assailant here say, look, no wounds. he is not bleeding. other people have a different interpretation. it seems like the reporting on both sides by the columnists, by the commentators, that the new information just gives them more to argue about. >> and there will be more now because the orlando sentinel has just engaged two voice experts to look at the -- to listen to the 911 tapes and both of them came back and said that the voices on the tape crying for help could not be zimmerman. that will just add fuel to the fire. i couldn't agree more with frank, and i think what's happening here is there's a great amount of identification. some people are really identifying with george zimmerman. this is a guy just trying to protect his neighborhood, and many, many other people having had the experience of racial profiling are saying a 17-year-old unarmed kid outweighed by this guy, what else could it be? you're correct that the journalism is getting lost, and part of it -- paw what's happening is we're ending up with drib drab reporting. here's a drip. here's a drab. nothing comes together in any one report that there's this and also this. and that is a problem. part of that is because there's no official investigation, i have to say, in which maybe there would be a way for reporters to attack this in a more holistic way. >> i think that's a problem. reporters are playing the investigators here. in some ways. >> that's right. >> because they're doing that, it comes out in dribs and draps. we don't know what investigators may have. >> there's so much we don't know. >> so much. >> are the commentators who have chosen sides, frank, are they, as bill o'reilly and others say, are they inflaming potential violence particularly as zimmerman has not been charged? >> potentially. yes, i think they are. for a media comment ate or to in one moment participate in a rally and go on the air the next moment and then, you know, feed all that back, it provides a sort of echo chamber, and it's way beyond the pale of what news organizations and media companies would have allowed. >> since you brought that up, that's al that wereton on msnbc, and he was back in florida leading a rally, asking for george zimmerman to be arrested and talking about the possibility of civil disobedience while continuing to do his msnbc show. i was critical of this on the air last week and phil griffin, the president of msnbc, has since defended sharpton's duel role, what i would describe as a dual role. he said we didn't hire al to be a neutered kind of news presenter. that's not what we do. no one is saying sharpton should be neutral. if he is going to lead a crusade against zimmerman, how can he continue to be a host of a cable show on the same issue at the same time? >> because he can. and he is. because the rules have changed. go ahead. yes. >> all right. >> i would add, this is highly charged. phil griffin's response to you was that, well, we knew what he was and we all do to some degree, but this is so highly charged i really think that he should do the work that he does with the national action network and step aside during this -- during this time because it can't be anything but polarizing with his role on the television show as well. it just can't be anything else. >> all right. there are times when people recrews themselves for one reason or another, and this would be a good one, it would seem. >> or do the show and don't go and address the rallies. you know, he is appearing with the parents. he accompanied trayvon's parents and he has them on the show. >> something else happens, if i may. the deeper he gets in with the family and the others, the more invested he gets in this, and the emotion of justifiable, understandable emotion of the family. the more that projects on the television program. that becomes a very concerning kind of thing. >> cally, you made a point about the way in which some people might identify with trayvon martin and others identify with george zimmerman. let me put up on the screen a poll from the poou research center. the percent of people following this story of all the stories in the news, for whites, 20%, for blacks, 52%. i'm wondering what you make of that, and also, what strikes you about the difference in which the way in which black journalists and white journalists talk or write about this case. >> well, the difference is that this is very personal to a lot of folks who have written about it. they have experienced a racial profiling that didn't, you know, wonderfully lead to some tragic outcome as had happen with or may have happened with trayvon martin, but they've been in the scenario, and so they can speak about it from having had at least three-quarters of the experience, and that makes it really personal, and the other part of this is that, know, black folks often say is there justice in a blind justice situation? can we really get justice in this situation, and so they're looking very closely to see that in a case that is as highly charged as it is, with race as the bigger context of this, because, you know, no matter what anybody says, he looks suspicious because he is a black kid and now what does that mean in the larger context? that's what black folks are looking at quite closely. >> let me just jump in here. i don't have any problem with journalists using their own experience to talk about how perceptions of police and perceptions of violence, but there are some who say when black journalists who do this they are compromising their -- >> i don't think that hes it at all. i think what's happening -- that survey was not about black journalists. that was about black and white americans. >> i'm just -- for the african-american journalists who are covering this, as for a woman who may or may not have had an abortion covering a pro-life rally, as for a gay journalist who is covering gay rights issues, you very much bring your own experiences to that coverage. the good journalist will be able to stop at the water's edge, though, in terms of inserting those experiences into the actual coverage, but being sensitized to how people feel, we had a huge problem here at cnf because we didn't have diversity in the newsroom. >> when you were the bureau chief. >> when there were suggestions of voting irregularities down in florida because african-americans said they were being harassed. there was some sort of dismissive -- not dismissive, but people didn't instantly get it. african-american journalists would have instantly got it. even if it's proven not to be true. it's this whole kind of -- this driving while black thing. a white driver doesn't experience it that the first thing you think about, oh, it's my race. >> let me mention that another point of polarization had to do with geraldo rivera that seemed to suggest by wearing a hoody, and various journalists have been wearing hoodies. trayvon martin was asking for it. if we can put it up on the screen. he said i apologize to anyone ofteneded by my quote. it could be a practice, potentially life-saving campaign. >> his own son jumped on him about that. he said what he had to say. you have to understand that the other reason why there are a lot of black news consumers that are following this story is that there is an understanding that in order for there to be some -- in many cases justice, it has to be your victim. when you start putting the blame on the victim, saying if he hadn't had a hoody on, if he hadn't had specific, if he didn't have the gold teeth or the finger up on the facebook, maybe he wouldn't be in a position to be deserving of what came to him in the end. and there is no really pure victim in this. i mean, he is a kid. he probably did a lot of stuff that other kids do. take it in the context of this very highly charged situation. it becomes something else. so for geraldo to say that and not recognize that the reverberation he would get, i mean, it's huge. >> all right. thanks very much, cally, frank, for helping us air out these difficult issues here this morning. when we come back, a mi hi herald reporter breaks news about trayvon martin only to be a vit real. her story in a moment. ok! who gets occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating? 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[ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. the trayvon marten narrative took a sharp term as florida reporters started breaking stories about the case. one of the most controversial scoops was reported by francis of the heat miami herald. i spoke to her earlier from sanford, florida. francis, welcome. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you for joining us. now, you broke the story on monday that trayvon martin had been suspended from school three times. once for possession of marijuana, and there was another incident involving women's jewelry. explain. >> we've learned that he got caught marking up a wall with graffiti and that when the school resource officer went the next day to investigate, they went through his book bag to find the marker for the graffiti, and instead they found a little bit more jewelry than a high school junior should have in his bag. wedding bands and things of that nature. because there was never a victim and there was no one ever saying, hey, that's my jewelry and it was stolen, there was no charges. he was never arrested. in fact, he was suspended for the graffiti. he was not suspended for burglary. >> talk a little bit about the reaction to that story. there were 5,000 comments posted on-line, and manufacture them were removed by the miami herald. what happened? >> i think that same day you started to see a tide change, and not just because of that story. there was a few different things that happened the same time. people started discovering trayvon's facebook or his twitter, his digital fingerprint that showed that some of the photos that the family had shown of him were kind of outdated and so then all of a sudden the emails that we were getting and the comments that we were getting that were overwhelmingly in support of trayvon, they started to shift, and people started saying really negative and vial things and, frankly, most of -- i didn't see most of the comments because, as you said, they were taken down. >> right. right. >> in fairness, in that same story, you quoted the attorney for the martin family as saying the whole business about the suspension was completely irrelevant. we think everybody is trying to demonize him. that brings me to the sort of central question. why was it news worthy that he had been suspended given what happened on that tragic day? >> i think it's just as newsworthy as all the things that we've printed about zimmerman. no one has had an issue of digging up his domestic violence complaints of the past, with an arrest that he had, that also was dismissed, and a case that's this big, the interest is so monumental, frankly, you really want to give a full biographical portral of who are the players that are involved here. >> in fact, the day after that suspension story, the sanford police had wanted to arrest george zimmerman, but the state's attorney refused, and i can't imagine that people who are sympathetic to the zimmerman side. >> i think one of the things that you are seeing in this case is that people are expecting media to have taken a side. just like you have some cable networks that have clear -- have taken postures in this, they're expecting the local newspaper to have a posture, to have a side. i think that that's clearly not our role. our role is to present the information as it's brought to us. the thing that doesn't make sense about the sanford police department wanting to file charges against george zimmerman is that it smacks -- it flies in the face of everything that the police department had said publicly, so it really is just one of those stories that makes you scratch your head. >> so what is it like to be in the middle of this to be reporting on a story as inflammatory and as racially charged as this and many people in the national media, as you say, are taking sides? does that make you extra cautious about of word that you print? >> yes, absolutely. it's actually -- your question is what's it like? it's horrible to be honest with you. i don't like being in the hot seat, and i think very few people do. i found myself the other night -- well, first of all, you have editors who might try to push you. you know, they say, well, don't you have it? so and so has that story. can't you get it? there's a tremendous amount of pressure. then you find yourself at night writing a story wanting to make the story sound a certain way because that's the way it sounded on a tv station or that's the way it sounded somewhere elsewhere it was juicy, and you have to ask yourself, wait, what did my source tell me? what do i know? you have to really put an effort to block out all the noise, to block out all the things, the emails that you are getting, or the things that you heard on television and report strictly the information that your sources have given you, and as long as you do that with every single word that you write, i think that we can stay safe wrfsh. >> understood. let me ask you about an incident that became a big deal on-line a couple of weeks ago. trayvon martin's family came to the "miami herald" sat for an interview, and the newspaper posted the video. there was a seemingly question from a reporter when the family was asked, well, what did he like to eat, and someone said chicken. >> tell me about trayvon's normal demeanor. >> he is talking on the phone with his friends, with girls, with his -- watching sports on tv. he is eating. >> chicken? >> he is eating everything. >> what was behind that? >> oh, what a nightmare. the video was posted on a couple of blogs, an ush know hip-hop blog and some other woman's blog, and it was taken out of context because, frankly, the original version that we posted was out of context, so we kind of did this to ourselves. what an avalanche, an avalanche of response that we got. it was a saturday, and all of a sudden all at once i started getting emails from all these people telling me that i was a racist, that was a sociopath, that i should kill myself. i wasn't even there, frankly. i was in sanford, and so it was quite a scramble on behalf of the "the miami herald" because on something this important, you can't be the major newspaper trying to be the paper of record on a story, looking like we were so grossly insensitive to trayvon's family. what the miami herald was forced to do -- >> family members were making jokes about chicken, and that was the reason for that question. >> right. absolutely. what had inadd verptly not been posted. they had to reedit the video and post it back on-line with the full context of trayvon's mother being the one to kind of poke fun at the stereotype that he liked to eat chicken. >> i can feel the tension all the way from florida as you have tried to report fairly on this story. when you get these emails and these comments saying you're a racist and worse, it must be kind of depressing. >> it's really bad. i mean, every now and then you'll get one that is uplifting where someone will say to you that was a very objective report, thank you for being fair, but then you'll get one that says, oh, thanks for finally unraveling the truth about that no good rotten up to no good teenager who deserved to get shot. you know