It is nearly 20 years since Chauncey Bailey, a crusading journalist, was murdered
on an Oakland street corner, gunned down to prevent him from writing stories about a
crooked business.
I hope people remember Bailey, a reporter and editor-in-chief for the
Oakland Post, the city’s Black newspaper. He had already written several articles about
the problems of a business called Your Muslim Bakery and was working on another
when the bakery’s owner ordered an employee to kill Bailey.
His murder shocked the journalism world that found the idea of an American
reporter killed for doing his job unfathomable. For me, the shock and sadness were also
personal.
I knew Bailey. In the mid-1970s we were classmates in the Michelle Clark Memorial
Foundation program, the precursor to the Institute for Journalism Education Summer
Program. A program, backed by the Ford Foundation, that provided intensive training
for fledgling minority journalism students and then placed them in jobs at newspapers
and television stations.
I’m reminded of Bailey and that program when I visit the East Bay at the end of
September to discuss the future of student journalism. To me, the visit will not only
evoke memories of Bailey. It will also be an opportunity to hone strategies to protect and
support student journalists who are under attack today, maybe not in the way that took away Chauncey Bailey, but an attack, nonetheless.
Spurred by the hostility toward the free press emanating out of Washington, high
school and college journalists are facing a barrage of censorship and harassment from
school administrators and local officials.
The 24-hour hotline staffed by the Student Press Law Center (SPLC), the non-profit I chair, has seen a 35% increase in calls from student journalists seeking legal advice on censorship, libel and copyright issues during the past two years, as well as a tripling in the number of complaints of harassment, including threats of firing, of faculty advisors.
I am not suggesting today’s national climate is as dangerous as the murderous
intentions of Yusef Bey IV, the man who ordered Bailey’s assassination. But the
harassment of student journalists does kill something else. It can destroy the desire of
student journalists to continue their growth to become professional news gatherers and
producers – something the country will always need.
It is that professional maturation that I’m reminded of when I think back on Chauncey
Bailey.
Truth be told, when we were classmates back in 1974 Bailey was the class clown,
known more for his sardonic wit than his writing or reporting talent. I have vivid
memories of Bailey sitting at his desk in the back of the room regaling us with sarcastic
comments. Sure, he was funny.
And he didn’t exhibit the level of reporting skills of our other classmates such as Milton Coleman who went on to be the Deputy Managing Editor of the Washington Post or Alexis Scott who for years has run the Atlanta Daily World.
After a series of reporting jobs in Hartford, Connecticut, Detroit, Michigan, and Oakland, Bailey had risen in talent and skill to helm this very newspaper. A tip from a source led Bailey to look into the possibility that Bey was running Your Muslim Bakery into bankruptcy. Word that Bailey was working on that story filtered back to Bey who ordered the journalist killed.
On August 2, 2007, Bailey was shot three times at point-blank range as he walked to work.
So, when I think of my trip to the East Bay my thoughts go to journalism’s past
represented by Chauncey Bailey’s sacrifice and what the staff and the board of SPLC
can do to secure the current and future work of student journalists.
Steven A. Holmes is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His novel “Black Messiahs” was published in May this year.
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