On March 27 , 2012 , NBC News broadcast an edited segment from a 911 call placed by George Zimmerman before he shot Trayvon Martin . The editing made it appear that Zimmerman volunteered that Martin was black , rather than merely responding to the dispatcher 's inquiry , which would support a view that the shooting was racially motivated . A media watchdog organization accused NBC News of engaging in " an all-out falsehood . " While NBC News initially declined to comment , the news agency did issue an apology to viewers . '' The Washington Post '' called the statement " skimpy on the details on just how the mistake unfolded . " On December 13 , 2012 , NBC News reporter Richard Engel and his five crew members , Aziz Akyavaş , Ghazi Balkiz , John Kooistra , Ian Rivers and Ammar Cheikh Omar , were kidnapped in Syria . Having escaped after five days in captivity , Engel said he believed that a Shabiha group loyal to al-Assad was behind the abduction , and that the crew was freed by the Ahrar al-Sham group five days later . Engel 's account was however challenged from early on . In April 2015 , NBC had to revise the kidnapping account , following further investigations by '' The New York Times '' , which suggested that the NBC team " was almost certainly taken by a Sunni criminal element affiliated with the Free Syrian Army , " rather than by a loyalist Shia group
shot Trayvon Martin
Shooting of Trayvon Martin
NBC News