Blog Hires Ex-'Palm Beach Post' Ombudsman to Cover Trial

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By: Mark Fitzgerald Blogger Gina McCauley, who founded What About Our Daughters to combat "those who are producing destructive images of black women and girls," has hired a veteran journalist, former Palm Beach (Fla.) Post ombudsman C.B. Hanif, to cover a gang-rape trial she believes is not getting sufficient media attention.

McCauley is raising the money to pay Hanif from donations to the Web site. As of Wednesday, the site indicated $1,002 had been raised since Aug. 17.

Hanif, who lost his Post job in a layoff last summer, has been reporting on the trial daily on the What About Our Daughters site, and providing frequent Twitter updates from the courtroom.

The trial revolves around a 2007 incident in a housing project in West Palm Beach, Fla., in which authorities say as many as 10 teenagers raped a mother and forced her and her son to perform sex acts with each other.

What About Our Daughters has written repeatedly that the incident has been essentially ignored by local media. When The Associated Press carried an account of the trial, McCauley wrote, "Well, it is a miracle, the Associated Press has deigned to report on the Dunbar Village Trial AND the story made it from the regional to the national wire so the story about the opening statements and initial testimony went nationwide."

She faulted the story for making "no mention of this being a hate crime based on gender and national origin.. which is BTW."

Hanif's work for the blog was first reported by Richard Prince in his Journal-isms blog on the Maynard Institute's Web site.

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