Zimmerman is suing NBC, I think it was, for broadcasting a version of the nonemergency phone call in which an answer and then a different question were omitted to put a racial slur in his mouth. Well and good, but he is only suing for $2 million, which in context is a poultry amount. “Poultry? Don’t you mean ‘paltry’?” “No, I mean poultry - it’s chicken feed!”And, as you suggest, the real problem is not a single news outlet but the entire system of news publishing - which means the AP, but also the membership of the AP individually. Joint and several liability. NBC wouldn’t have done what it did without the support and instigation of all the others - it was far to blatant for an individual publisher to undertake if it weren’t for the “everyone is doing it” pseudo defense.
But when you recognize that all the news outlets are - via the AP - in cahoots, that is no defense at all. The AP and its membership really should be defendants in a civil RICO suit, because the libeling of the middle class in America is what the AP and its membership, jointly and severally, do. If it isn’t Zimmerman, it’s the Duke Lacrosse Team, or the Swiftboat vets, or somebody. And the fact that the Democratic Party goes along and gets along is no excuse, it just makes it that much more egregious.
You have stated it well.