O'Reilly Scolds Media for 'Convicting' George Zimmerman on Television as Al Sharpton Tries to Convict Zimmerman on Television

Two polar opposite reactions to new evidence in the Trayvon Martin case surfaced tonight on Fox News and MSNBC. On Fox, Bill O'Reilly told Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump that "it's wrong to convict anybody on television," referring to the premature reaction by many in the media to the Martin story. And despite being the Martin family advocate, Crump actually agreed with O'Reilly on the subject, saying "no extreme is good" while still pointing out that there are holes in the case which makes Martin's killing look suspicious.

Arguably, Crump was more of a prop in the segment, as O'Reilly spent much of it slamming the media for its premature behavior and sensationalism regarding the case.

"That’s what’s wrong with the media in this country: no longer to facts matter; accusations are enough to condemn folks. The press wants a story and doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process," O'Reilly said. "No media observer knows exactly what happened the night Trayvon Martin was killed."

Yet while no one in the media knows exactly what happened, at least one media observer thinks he knows - namely, Al Sharpton. Referring to the recently released police surveillance tape of George Zimmerman being escorted into the police station, Sharpton claimed Zimmerman looked anything but like a man who had been beaten "within an inch of his life."

Sharpton described Zimmerman's side of the story as "crumbling" and asked two experts he'd invited on the show to comment on what the surveillance tape shows. Both experts agreed that they didn't think the video showed the sort of injuries described in the police report.