Jeff Burnside Lands at Seattle’s KOMO

By Kevin Eck 

Jeff Burnside, the investigative reporter who was fired several months ago from NBC owned WTVJ, has landed a job with Seattle’s KOMO.

WTVJ fired Burnside for placing an edited version of George Zimmerman’s 911 call in his story about the Trayvon Martin case.  Martin was the 17-year-old who was shot while walking through a gated community near Orlando.  George Zimmerman faces second-degree murder charges in the case.

Burnside is now the Seattle ABC affiliate’s senior investigative reporter.

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TVSpy reported Burnside’s firing in April and included a transcript detailing the audio edits,

In a report on the 5pm newscast in mid-March, Burnside used the following audio of Zimmerman’s 911 call:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. He looks black.

The full audio of the 911 tape reveals Zimmerman was asked about Martin’s race by the dispatcher, which Burnside left out:

Zimmerman: This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.

Dispatcher: OK, and this guy — is he white, black, or Hispanic?

Zimmerman: He looks black.

[sfltv][gossipextra]

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