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Setback for Justice, Not Journalism

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Killer May Go Free, But Filmmaker Says He Did His Job

Killer May Go Free, but Filmmaker Says He Did His Job

A 2005 discovery by a Canadian documentary filmmaker that a former Klansman was still alive led to the ex-Klansman’s prosecution and conviction for the 1964 slayings of two African American teenagers in Mississippi — convictions that were vacated Tuesday on a technicality.

"Of course, it’s disappointing," filmmaker David Ridgen told Journal-isms. But he said he was confident that the case isn’t over, and neither is his interest in justice for the atrocities committed during that era.

A Ridgen project has received seed funding to investigate the remaining "cold cases" from the 1960s, and is working on that project with the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif.; Paperny Films, a television company in Vancouver, Canada; partners in Washington and New York, and "of course, journalists in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana," as well as Massachusetts.

Also participating is Thomas Moore, the brother of Charles Eddie Moore, one of the 19-year-olds beaten, bound, gagged and thrown into the Mississippi River to drown. 

"Every day we talk to people, we hear of another case we hadn’t heard about," he said. "The goal is to get the truth out, not necessarily to find justice. Our window of opportunity may be three to five years" before all those involved have died.

On the case of James Ford Seale, which was vacated Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Ridgen said, "We’re in the seventh inning. I don’t think we’re in the bottom of the ninth. It’s clear it had nothing to do with the facts," he said of the decision.

The judges concluded that the federal statute of limitations on kidnapping had expired.

U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton of Jackson, Miss.,¬†said he would discuss the matter with Paige Fitzgerald, a lawyer from the Justice Department who helped prosecute the case, to determine whether prosecutors will ask the entire 5th Circuit to review Tuesday’s decision, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported.

The 1964 case had remained in limbo until Ridgen met Thomas Moore.  He and Ridgen traveled to Mississippi in July 2005, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported then. Ridgen had discovered the case in the archives of the CBC while preparing for another documentary. 

"Ridgen had been assigned by CBC Television to do a new documentary on the ‘Mississippi Burning’ case" involving the killing of three civil rights workers in 1964, according to a 2005 story by the Associated Press. "As part of his research, he had watched a 1964 CBC piece on the murders, and noticed footage of police fishing human bones out of the Mississippi River.

"When officials determined that these were the bones of black men . . . the press turned its attention elsewhere. But Ridgen couldn’t shake the images of the discolored bones and decomposed clothes. He dug deeper.

"These were the bones, he learned, of Henry Dee and Charles Moore, two young black men whose deaths had gone unavenged. And he learned that Moore had a brother.

"Ridgen searched for more than 10 months to locate Moore, who now lives in Colorado Springs, Colo.," according to the CBC story. "Moore, a 63-year-old Vietnam veteran born on the Fourth of July, had been struggling for years to come to terms with the lack of justice in his brother’s case.

"Their first trip proved very eventful. During a random stop at a Roxie gas station, Moore lamented to a local man that one of the prime suspects in his brother’s death had died.

"When Moore mentioned Seale’s name, the man informed him Seale was alive and offered to show Moore where he lived nearby.

"After visiting Dunn Lampton, the U.S. attorney for southern Mississippi, Ridgen and Moore were assured that a new look at the case would be initiated."

"I will never have the words to describe it. I’m just glad that I was alive to be a part of it," Moore said then.

"There is no way on this earth that this would have happened if it weren’t for the CBC allowing David Ridgen to go down to Mississippi."

The Associated Press reported that the development was also aided by the work of Jerry Mitchell, the Clarion-Ledger reporter whose investigative work has led to the reopening of a number of civil rights-era murder cases.

Mitchell wrote Wednesday’s Clarion-Ledger’s story on the case of Seale, who is now 72, in prison and suffering from cancer, kidney problems and other physical ailments.

The June 2007 trial revealed the truth of what happened that fateful day, Moore said in the latest story. Nothing, he said, not even Tuesday’s decision, "can take that away."

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nBdH7emDj0]

Was Ron Allen "arrogant" in interviewing Newt Gingrich at the GOP convention?

Congressional Candidate Calls NBC’s Ron Allen "Uppity"

A white Republican congressional candidate in Georgia referred to NBC correspondent Ron Allen, a black journalist, as "very uppity" in a radio interview in Macon, Ga., last week, Jim Galloway reported Monday in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Eighth District candidate Rick Goddard, a retired Air Force general, made the comments on the "Kenny B. and Charles E. Show" after returning from the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

"I’ll tell you one thing, I think we’re going to have a very, very strong, capable president in John McCain. Last night, Newt Gingrich disarmed a very uppity newscaster who tried to question him on the capabilities and leadership of Governor Palin," referring to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the vice presidential nominee, and Gingrich, the onetime speaker of the House. "There’s simply no comparison between a governor and a community organizer," Goddard said.

Allen deferred to NBC, where spokeswomen did not respond to requests for comment.

Tim Baker, spokesman for the Goddard campaign, said this, according to Galloway:

"A member of the media dropped all pretense of objectivity during an interview¬†with Newt Gingrich to arrogantly launch an attack on Gov. Sarah Palin’s experience, to which Rick came to her defense and simply evoked a word ‚Äî that by definition ‚Äî described the reporter’s demeanor as being superior, arrogant and presumptuous.

"To try and smear Rick’s character by suggesting that he meant anything other than the definition is ludicrous."

Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, told Journal-isms, "What does one say, how does one respond when a GOP congressional hopeful reduces himself to the position of a schoolyard bully and resorts to name-calling? I would urge the voters in his district to hold him accountable for his words and deeds, other than that — we (NABJ) have bigger issues to deal with that eclipse this man’s apparent poor home training."

Sen. Barack Obama says Republican charges are "catnip for the media."

Obama Blasts Media for Repeating "Lipstick" Attack

Sen. Barack Obama branded the John McCain campaign’s assault on his "lipstick on a pig" comments as a "phony and foolish" diversion that diminishes political debate and hurts American voters, and he blasted the news media for going along with it.

"Enough," Obama declared, Peter Slevin reported for the Washington Post. "I don’t care what they say about me. But I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and Swift Boat politics. Enough is enough."

"What their campaign has done this morning," Obama said, "is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad, because they know that it’s catnip for the media."

"Obama made the lipstick comment Tuesday night in Lebanon, Va., while dismissing Republican rival Sen. John McCain’s claim to be an agent of change in Washington. Listing a host of issues on which he said McCain has the same position as President Bush, Obama said, "That’s not change,"¬†Slevin reported.

Although Obama was discussing McCain, not vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor, Republicans called it a sexist assault on Palin.

"Barack Obama stuck his foot in his mouth today when he said ‘you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig’ — which the angry McCain campaign immediately charged was an out-of-bounds attack on running mate Sarah Palin," Geoff Earle wrote¬†in the New York Post, which the day before endorsed McCain on its front page.

"For the week of Sept. 1-7, Palin was a significant or dominant factor in 60% of the campaign stories, according to the Campaign Coverage Index from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. McCain was fairly close behind, a significant or dominant factor in 52% of the stories," the Pew center reported.

It was the first time in the three months since the general election campaign began that McCain generated more coverage than Obama, but he was still outshone by Panin, the center said.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Courtland Milloy responded to a widely publicized column Tuesday by Post colleague Richard Cohen, who said Obama’s appearance Sunday on ABC’s "This Week" "had me wondering if, as a kid, Obama ever got a shot in the mouth on the playground, he’d glare at the bully — and convene a meeting."

Milloy wrote, "If traditional campaigning can’t convince voters that Obama is man enough, then perhaps he should wear his baseball cap backward and saunter cockily, a model of black masculinity that America is more familiar with. He could vow to off his rivals with the political equivalent of what Palin does to a moose."

N.Y. Post’s Latest Rev. Wright Story Fizzles

The tabloid New York Post bannered "O PASTOR IN SEX SCANDAL" on Tuesday, but its story¬†about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, failed to gain much traction.

"He almost wrecked Barack Obama’s presidential dreams, and now firebrand pastor Jeremiah Wright has helped destroy a Dallas church worker’s marriage — and her job, The Post has learned," began¬†the story by Samuel Goldsmith, in Dallas, and Jeane MacIntosh, in New York, with additional reporting by Austin Fenner, who covered Wright’s appearance at a New Jersey church.

But while picked up on the Fox News Web site and by the sensational black Web site Media Takeout, which highlighted the interracial nature of the alleged affair, the story was eclipsed in other media by discussion of Sarah Palin.

By the next day, the scoop was reduced to a "claim" by the church worker.

"’Her [firing] had nothing to do with Jeremiah Wright,’ the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church, said yesterday of his ousted executive assistant, Elizabeth Payne. ‘Her performance wasn’t up to standards,’" the Post reported.

Goldsmith referred questions to an editor, who did not respond to a request to discuss the story.

Minnesota News Outlet Says 42 Journalists Arrested

"Of the 800-plus people who were arrested or detained in conjunction with RNC protests, a good chunk of them — 42, by our count — were members of the news media," Anna Pratt of the Minnesota Independent Web site reported on Wednesday, referring to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

"Media representatives in town to cover the events, from both big and small presses, were slapped with citations and pending charges ranging in severity, including unlawful assembly, obstructing the legal process, misdemeanor interference with a peace officer and felony to riot plus other riot pretenses. . .

"MnIndy has compiled a list of journalists who were detained or arrested, including some preemptively, culled from news reports and sources, including the Ramsey County sheriff’s department’s booking roster. Let us know if anyone is unaccounted for and we’ll add them to the list."

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TiQCJXpbKg]

On a light note, Australian Hugh Atkin spliced together a video that imagined John McCain being "BarackRoll’d" in a joint¬†musical appearance by the two presidential candidates.

Warith Mohammed Was¬†Photog’s "Uncle Wallace"

To most who read the obituaries, Imam Warith Deen Mohammed was "a major Islamic leader in the U.S. who led thousands of African-American Muslims to orthodox Islam," as Niraj Warikoo wrote Tuesday for the Detroit Free Press. But to Ozier Muhammad, veteran photographer for the New York Times who has been covering the presidential campaign, he was "Uncle Wallace."

Mohammed died at 74 on Tuesday in Illinois, the Free Press said.

He was a son of Elijah Muhammad, longtime leader of the Nation of Islam, but he came to opt for orthodox Islam and called his father an impostor, not a prophet.

Ozier Muhammad was one of Elijah’s grandsons. Steven Barboza quoted Ozier in his 1994 book, "American Jihad: Islam After Malcolm X," saying that in the 1950s, the former Wallace Muhammad was a stern teacher. "God, he was so rigid! I didn’t like him. Being in his class, he would single me out and spank me. Sometimes he would make me stand out in the hallway. One occasion he racked me across my knuckles. I said, ‘God, how come Uncle Wallace is treating me like this?’"

But later, a cousin, through Wallace, "introduced me to the orthodoxies of the religion" after Wallace¬†broke with the Nation’s black nationalism. "Man, it was like I was reborn. Finally I felt like well, gee, there is something greater than the Nation. All of a sudden my horizons expanded. I felt like I was connected with the greater Islamic world," Ozier Muhammad said in the book.

"I did well in college, I think because of the discipline. Frivolity was foreign to me. But Hassan" — the cousin, Hassan Sharif — "and Wallace helped me to get through. Thank God for Wallace and Hassan because white people weren’t so intimidating to me when I went to Columbia College. They said that they weren’t devils."

Asked about media coverage of Warith Mohammed, Chicago-based In These Times writer Salim Muwakkil told Journal-isms Wednesday via e-mail, "There was little notice of the part WD [Warith Deen] played in minimizing the potential for conflict following the passing [of] Elijah Muhammad in 1975. When WD altered the Nation of Islam’s black nationalist focus, he was tampering with perhaps the most critical aspect of Elijah’s catechism.

"There was a lot of residual rancor left in Elijah’s followers from the days when Malcolm X split from the group and began urging the same kind of non-racial message WD preached. WD assumed leadership of the voluble organization without the blood bath that many predicted, but he also managed to completely transform the black supremacist doctrine at the Nation’s core."

He continued: Minister Louis Farrakhan, who revived the Nation of Islam using Elijah’s doctrine, "initially pledged fealty to that transformed vision, but even when he broke away two years later, there was virtually no violence and very little public rancor," Muwakkil said. "This was remarkable, given the Nation’s violence-plagued history of divisions and succession struggles. Much of the credit for this peaceful transition belongs to WD and the reputation he had gained for theological rigor and personal integrity."

Mexican Journalist Languishes in El Paso Jail

Emilio Guti?©rrez Soto, 45, a correspondent for the Ciudad Ju?°rez-based El Diario del Noroeste in the city of Ascensi??n, in the northwestern border state of Chihuahua, Mexico, remains in a detention center in El Paso, Texas, nearly three months after seeking political asylum in the United States, Monica Campbell, Mexico consultant for the Committee to Protect Journalists, wrote¬†Tuesday for the committee.

He "began fearing for his life when approximately 50 armed soldiers entered his home in Ascensi??n on May 5 without a permit. . . .

"After reaching the U.S. border, the journalist and his son claimed political asylum to Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint in Columbus, New Mexico. Guti?©rrez and his son were then taken to separate detention facilities in El Paso, Texas. In August, his son, who was held in a juvenile detention center, was released and remains with relatives in the United States. Guti?©rrez continues to push his asylum case.

"More than 1,000 people have been killed in Chihuahua state so far this year as drug cartels battle to control smuggling routes to the United States."

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