Do We Care?

If you think Mexico and war zones are the only place where reporters, editors and yes photographers are killed think again. In recent years, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, four journalist were murdered in the US, the most recent and well publicized, you might recall, was Little Rock, Arkansas anchorwoman Anne Pressly, 26, who was murdered in her home in October of 2008.

You might not remember the editor of the California, Oakland Post who was shot three times with a sawed-off shotgun after leaving a McDonald's resturant on August 2, 2007. His name was Chauncey Bailey. Within days Devaughndre Broussard, a former dishwasher at Your Black Muslim Bakery would be charged.

Bailey's murder might not have been solved if it were not for the work of a group of retired and out of work reporters who formed the The Chauncey Bailey Project with the help of foundations and the University of California, Berkeley. The group continued with an investigation of the bakery that Bailey had started and in the process they uncovered a link to the lead investigator in the case, Sgt. Derwin Longmire who had been close to Yusuf Bey IV and the bakery for years.

Several questions pop into my mind, maybe unfairly, why more national media attention was not given to Bailey's murder, he wasn't a pretty blonde, he was a black man looking into a once prominent business in Oakland's black community in the late 1960's that provided jobs to young African-Americans. Then there's the name of the business, Your Black Muslim Bakery, can any story be objectively reported that includes the word Muslim, and there is also questions of a connection within the police department and the bakery's owner.

I did locate a 60 Minutes broadcast on February 2008 and the publish date on this most recent followup story by New York Post writer Tim Arango is February 22, 2009, but do we really care?