So do you think it was Sites or NBC who created the incident? Did they use live actors or CGI?
Neither "created" the incident. But, like Abu Gharaib, it is the media mavens who made the decision to make it a "big deal" by giving it full time exposure, commentary, editorials, talking head panels, civil rights lawyer interviews, headlines in the New York Times,... and blowing a crummy little nothing incident up into a full crisis.
They know how to build something into a full blown crisis, and they know how to bury a full blown crisis deep into the ground so it doesn't see the light of day. They have decades of practice, including 8 years of criminal Clinton cover-ups and destruction of his "enemies".
They're pros at this. They don't have to manufacture something up. There is always an incident they can spotlight and spin to forward their agenda. All they need to do is decide they are going to use it, and how.