In other words, there are a whole lot of things that keep getting repeated in story after story, even though (as in the case of the Skittles) many would be utterly irrelevant, even if they were true.
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I want to sort it out because I want to know if the media is making this stuff up.
Me, too. Most of the media is just repeating things they read in somebody else’s story without independently checking the facts. And when it is something so trivial and irrelevant, I can understand not checking it out. I can’t understand repeating it.
There actually are quite a few facts available, but not many make it into stories. For example, the idea that the police operator told Zimmerman not to follow but he kept going anyway. All you have to do is listen to the call for yourself to see that is not true.