Journos in Bay Area Launch 'Chauncey Bailey Project'

By: E&P Staff In a collaboration reminiscent of the 1976 "Arizona Project," more than two dozen San Francisco Bay Area journalists are launching the Chauncey Bailey Project to continue the investigative reporting the Oakland Post editor was pursuing when he was murdered on Aug. 2.

"We cannot stand for a reporter to be murdered while working on behalf of the public," said Dori J. Maynard, president and CEO of the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. "Chauncey's death is a threat to democracy. Journalists will not be intimidated. This type of crime cast a chilling affect over our community. We will not be bullied. We have to prove that there is no gain, and hell to pay, when the very structure of our society is challenged."

Bailey was looking into the suspicious activities of the Your Black Muslim Bakery and the Bey family members who operated it over the past two decades.

Devaughndre Broussard, a 19-year-old handyman at the bakery, has confessed to the murder of the editor of the black-oriented weekly. But Project members noted that questions about the reasons behind the slaying remain a mystery.

Project editorial coordinator Robert J. Rosenthal said the print, broadcast and new media journalists would investigate past and current activities of the family empire.

"This is a unique collaboration and we hope our work goes beyond Bailey's murder and reveals broader issues that impact the lives of Oakland's citizens," said Rosenthal, the former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Bailey Project would be the largest group journalistic investigation since the Arizona Project formed in 1976 following the murder of Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles, who was killed by a bomb placed under his car. Bolles had been investigating links between organized criminals and Phoenix businessmen. Some 38 journalists from 28 newspapers and TV stations participated in the Arizona Project.

Journalists from the following organizations are participating in the Chauncey Bailey Project:

Bay Area Black Journalists Association
Bay Area News Group
Center for Investigative Reporting
Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.
KGO-AM
KPIX-TV
KQED Public Radio
KTVU-TV
Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
National Association of Black Journalists
New America Media
New Voices in Independent Journalism
San Francisco State University Journalism Department
San Francisco Bay Guardian
San Jose State University Journalism Department
Sigma Delta Chi of the National Society of Professional Journalists
Society of Professional Journalists - Northern California Chapter
University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism

Pete Wevurski, managing editor, BANG-EB and executive editor for the Oakland Tribune, said the project
"is essential to Oakland and essential to us as journalists who wish to emphasize the point that you can kill the messenger, but the message is still going to get through."