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More Charges Imminent in Bailey Killing

richard

updated April 16

Detective Accused of Compromising Case Is Sidelined

"Murder charges against former Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV and another man in the August 2007 killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey are imminent, law enforcement and other sources said Wednesday night," Thomas Peele, Bob Butler and Mary Fricker of the Chauncey Bailey Project reported in Thursday’s editions of the Oakland (Calif.) Tribune.

"Devaughndre Broussard, the only person charged with killing Bailey, has agreed to testify that Bey ordered the killing and that Antoine Mackey, another of Bey followers, helped carry out the hit. Bey and Mackey would face murder charges if indicted by a grand jury.

Deputy District Attorney Christopher Lamiero said, "We are very close to a point where we are going to be able to hold accountable all of those responsible for Bailey’s murder."

Separately, on Tuesday, Peele reported¬†that Oakland police "are moving to fire Sgt. Derwin Longmire in the wake of administrative findings that he compromised the investigation of journalist Chauncey Bailey’s August 2007 killing, according to a senior officer with knowledge of the situation."

"Longmire was put on paid administrative leave late Monday. The decision to fire him will be the subject of a mandatory hearing before final action. He is also charged with insubordination."

Longmire has been criticized by those seeking to unravel the killing of Bailey since he was shot in downtown Oakland that August day.

At the end of December, the Bailey Project wrote:

"As questions continue to swirl around Bailey’s death, the officers said they have concerns about when and if clear answers will emerge.

"Those questions include:

"Why was so much critical evidence that seems to point to a conspiracy to kill Bailey – a video of Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV mocking the killing, an interview of a bakery worker who said Bey IV bragged that the slaying was a testament to his power – not included in lead detective Sgt. Derwin Longmire’s case notes as required by department policy?

"Were Longmire’s mistakes intentional to protect his friend Bey IV as Bey IV himself bragged on a secretly recorded police video? Or were they symptomatic of how badly broken the department is?"

"Why did Longmire’s case notes not include information from a tracking device that showed Bey IV was outside Bailey’s apartment seven hours before the killing?"

Bailey was investigating the bakery at the time of his killing. Bey is jailed awaiting trial on a slew of criminal charges and is suspected of ordering Broussard, one of his followers, to kill Bailey 20 months ago, as Tuesday’s story said. Broussard’s trial is scheduled for next month.¬†

The Bailey Project is supported by the Maynard Institute and other journalism organizations in order to carry on Bailey’s work. Peele also wrote Tuesday:

"Lt. Ersie Joyner, who supervised Longmire’s investigation of Bailey’s killing, and Deputy Chief Jeffrey Loman, who was then a captain and Joyner’s boss, face discipline for not properly supervising the Bailey case. Loman has been put on leave with pay pending the outcome of an investigation involving sexual harassment.

"Police spokesman Officer Jeffrey Thomason said he could only confirm that Longmire is on ‘paid administrative leave’ pending the outcome of disciplinary proceedings. ‘It is against state law to discuss personnel issues,’ Thomason said, citing rules that keep police administrative matters secret from taxpayers."

Diverse Team to Lead Washington Post Newsroom

Three journalists of color received key positions Thursday in a major reorganization of the Washington Post newsroom, reporting to a top tier that is also diverse: a white man, a white woman, a South Asian man and an African American man. 

"In keeping with our strategic focus on serving readers in and interested in Washington, we will put most news reporters under two senior editors, a National Editor and a Local Editor," Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli said in a memo. "Much first-line editing, copyediting and production will occur on a new Universal News Desk under another senior editor. Together with the executive editor, the managing editors and the deputy managing editor, these people will form the core leadership of the newsroom.

"These changes, which become effective May 1, will set in motion other personnel moves."  

Brauchli did not mention diversity in his memo, but he told Journal-isms when he was named in July:

"Diversity of background brings diversity of ideas brings diversity of coverage." That, in turn, can "improve the vision of the news."

He also said there was no contradiction between seeking diversity and struggling with tough times.

Of Thursday’s appointments, Merida is a black journalist (and graduate of the Maynard Institute), Garcia-Ruiz is Hispanic and Sugawara is Asian American. A co-managing editor, Raju Narisetti, is South Asian, and Milton Coleman, deputy managing editor, is African American. Liz Spayd is the managing editor with responsibility for hard news. She and Brauchli are white.

In his memo Thursday, Brauchli said, "Today, we are beginning a reorganization to create new reporting groups, streamline editing desks and anticipate the impending integration of our print and digital news operations.

"The changes reinforce our longstanding belief in great reporting and writing as the vital center of The Post’s journalism. We want to empower journalists and encourage them to work across departments and platforms. In addition, we want to simplify the handling of words, pages, images and new media . . . Decisions about space and play must happen faster, both in print and online, and in a way that pulls together our now-separate newsrooms." [Added April 16.]

Fiona Luis, assistant managing editor for features, says of Boston Globe layoffs, "I don’t want to have to do that again." (Credit: Suzanne Kreiter/Boston Globe)

Fiona Luis Gives Up Dream of a Top Job at Globe

Fiona Luis, the Boston Globe’s assistant managing editor for features who says she "had wanted to be the first woman minority" on the Globe’s masthead, is instead leaving the paper on May 1, she told Journal-isms on Wednesday.

"The layoffs we had to do . . . were difficult moments for us," she said. "I don’t want to have to do that again. I’ll be 45 this summer. I’ve spent 22¬? years of my life" at the Globe. "The timing is right. I decided to step off the train."

Jessica Heslam wrote March 26 in the rival Boston Herald that, "The Globe needed 50 newsroom employees to take buyouts by last Friday but only 24 have signed up. Employees have a week to rescind after applying for the buyout and the final deadline is tomorrow."

"I signed up for it on the last day possible," Luis told Journal-isms. "A difficult decision, especially when I looked around and saw so few women in positions of power, much less minorities." She was effusive in her praise for the 45 to 50 people who work with her in the features department she led for seven years, a job that enabled her to immerse herself among "creative and smart people." She also regretted the departure of a top-ranking woman, Mary Jane Wilkinson, managing editor/administrator,

Luis said she did not know yet whether her next pursuit would be writing or editing.

The Globe Wednesday announced that Doug Most, editor of the Boston Globe Magazine, would become deputy managing editor of features, a masthead position.

Separately, John Hopkins, the Chesapeake court reporter for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va., told Journal-isms he volunteered to take a severance package after 10 years at that paper. Hopkins, 44, said, "I want to try something else" after having been a journalist for 20 years. The paper plans to lay off 40 people paper-wide, Philip Walzer reported last week, including 12 in the newsroom.

On the West Coast, reporter Edwin Garc??a is leaving the San Jose Mercury News for a media relations job at Kaiser Permanente, Veronica Villafane reported in her Media Moves site. Garcia "resigned last week from the paper but will stay on until May 1.

"He says he wasn’t looking for a job, but when a former Merc colleague called him up and asked if he would be interested in exploring the position, he sent his r?©sum?©. Shortly after, the newspaper announced furloughs, a proposed 15% pay cut and Edwin’s second baby was born. So, when he got the offer, he accepted."

Keri Murakami at a "Zombie" party in Seattle in October (Credit: Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Former Seattle P-I Staffers Going Online . . .

"Laid-off Seattle Post-Intelligencer journalists today launched a nonprofit online news site, Seattlepostglobe.org," Eric Pryne reported Tuesday for the Seattle Times.

"Former P-I reporter Kery Murakami ‚Äî ‘I guess I’m the publisher’ ‚Äî said he and a half-dozen other former P-I journalists form the core staff, but more than 20 other reporters, photographers and editors have said they intend to contribute.

"Today’s home page features stories advancing the Mariners’ home opener, another setting up this fall’s contest for Seattle city attorney, and a column by a former P-I editorial writer.

"The P-I continues as an online-only news outlet, but it employs just 20 of the 150 or so journalists who had worked for the paper.

"Seattlepostglobe.org has little money ‚Äî about $3,000, with another $3,000 pledged. ‘We’re working as volunteers now,’ Murakami said.

"The site expects to rely to a great extent on reader donations. Murakami said the goal is to get 8,000 people to pledge $10 a month to help pay full-time, part-time or freelance staff.

"Seattlepostglobe.org also intends to sell advertising. Murakami said it has struck a deal with the Seattle Weekly under which the alternative paper will sell ads for the site and keep half the revenue.

"KCTS-TV also is supporting the fledgling venture, providing office space and serving as a vehicle for tax-free contributions. Murakami said Seattlepostglobe.org and the PBS station are discussing other ways to collaborate, perhaps with former P-I journalists providing content for KCTS broadcasts or the station’s Web site."

. . . While Ex-Hoy N.Y. Staffers Plan for Print Daily

"On April 20th, New York will have one more Spanish-language daily, called N.Y. Al Dia. The paper will be printed in tabloid format and will be sold at 1,800 points in New York at the price of $0.40. Al Dia is the fruit of the ideas of former journalists at Hoy, which was closed in December 2008 by Impremedia, owner of another Spanish-language daily, El Diario La Prensa," Marion Geiger wrote Wednesday for the Editors Weblog, quoting Portada magazine.

The recent "State of the News Media 2009 report showed that ethnic papers find themselves better off than many mainstream American papers. However some may disagree, considering many ethnic media outlets suffered last year. Hoy was shut down, Asian Week and the San Francisco Bay View went online-only, Siglo21 is down to publishing weekly, Ming Pao Daily is folding, and employees at Ebony and Jet must all reapply for remaining jobs.

"Regardless, El Diario had a relatively steady year according to Alberto Vourvoulias, executive editor of the publication. However, Hoy did not survive the turbulence. With N.Y. Al Dia opening, will New York be big enough for two paid Spanish-language dailies?"

Reports Cite Abuse of Hispanics, Documented and Not

"In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years," Suzanne Gamboa reported Sunday for the Associated Press.

"A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

"It is illegal to deport U.S. citizens or detain them for immigration violations. Yet citizens still end up in detention because the system is overwhelmed, acknowledged Victor Cerda, who left Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2005 after overseeing the system. The number of detentions overall is expected to rise by about 17 percent this year to more than 400,000, putting a severe strain on the enforcement network and legal system."

Separately, Andrew Becker of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Center for Investigative Reporting and Anna Gorman of the Los Angeles Times wrote¬†on Wednesday. "Federal authorities have repeatedly said their priority is to find and remove illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories, but the U.S. government’s stepped up enforcement in recent years has led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants convicted of nonviolent crimes, according to a new study.

"Nearly three-quarters of the roughly 897,000 immigrants deported from 1997 to 2007 after serving criminal sentences were convicted of nonviolent offenses and one-fifth were legal permanent residents, according to the study released today by Human Rights Watch."

Meanwhile, a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, said Tuesday that, "Unauthorized immigrants living in the United States are more geographically dispersed than in the past and are more likely than either U.S. born residents or legal immigrants to live in a household with a spouse and children. In addition, a growing share of the children of unauthorized immigrant parents — 73% — were born in this country and are U.S. citizens.

"In this new analysis, the Center estimates that the rapid growth of unauthorized immigrant workers also has halted; it finds that there were 8.3 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. labor force in March 2008."

Noting the AP story, publicists for the documentary "A Forgotten Injustice" pointed out that Vicente Serrano, news anchor at the NBC-owned-and-operated Telemudo station in Chicago, "headed a different five year-long investigation that resulted in a documentary, a first of its kind, about similar massive and unconstitutional deportations of the 1930s."

The film is to be screened at the Chicago Latino Film Festival on Saturday at 9 p.m. and on Sunday, April 26, at 4 p.m.

Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama campaigning in New Hampshire, December 2007.

Obama’s Appearance on "Oprah" Ruled Legit

Oprah Winfrey "inviting then-Sen. Barack Obama onto her show last year did not amount to a political donation to his presidential campaign, the Federal Election Commission has ruled," Dan Eggen reported Wednesday in the Washington Post.

"William Lee Stotts of Cordova, Tenn., filed a complaint in October alleging that Obama’s appearance on Winfrey’s popular talk show during the Democratic primaries amounted to an unlawful campaign contribution that gave him an ‘an unfair advantage over the other candidates, both Republican and Democrat, who were deprived such an opportunity.’

"But in a decision posted to the agency’s Web site Monday, FEC lawyers determined that Winfrey’s show ‘engages in activities traditionally associated with media entities’ and is, therefore, subject to a ‘media exemption’ that excludes news stories and show appearances from campaign finance laws. FEC lawyers also noted that Winfrey ‘was not a candidate’ and that her show ‘is not owned or controlled by a political party or candidate.’"

Yvette Miley Named Executive Editor at MSNBC

Yvette Miley, vice president of news at WTVJ-TV in Miami, has been named executive editor of MSNBC, NBC announced on Wednesday.

As executive editor, Miley will assist Managing Editor Shannon High in overseeing the editorial content of MSNBC Dayside, the network said.

Miley, a 19-year veteran of NBC Universal, has overseen all of WTVJ’s local and national news coverage, including coverage of Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Wilma, the foreclosure crisis and politics ‚Äî across all platforms, the announcement said.

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