‘Bleeping A**holes!’: HLN Anchor Jane Velez-Mitchell Censors Wrong Part Of Sentence

The various successes and failures of the news media to censor profanity during the George Zimmerman murder trial have, collectively, become a defining characteristic of the coverage. In a trial that literally began with prosecutor John Guy‘s uncensored utterance of the words “F**king punks,” and continued with unsuccessful and ill-considered attempts to censor the language that George Zimmerman used as he pursued Trayvon Martin, Headline News anchor Jane Velez-Mitchell found a new way to fail in that endeavor, neglecting to bleep her own use of profanity.

For the uninitiated (a group which, prior to this trial, included me), Headline News is a channel that seems to have been inspired by Chevy Chase and Garrett Morris, because everyone on it yells everything, at all times. In tossing to her “Lion’s Den” panel, Velez-Mitchell asked “Do George Zimmerman’s use of bleeping punks, and bleepin’ assholes, they always…”

She caught herself just outside the nick of time, and said “Excuse my French, I apologize. One too many bleeps. My apologies for using that profanity accidentally, which was actually used in the trial.”

Credit Velez-Mitchell for originality, though, as she quickly made a rewinding sound effect, and declared “I undid that, my apologies. Bleeping you know what.”

Here’s the clip, from HLN:

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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