WHEN NEWS ISN'T NEWS
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
[Col. written 6/19/02]
Nothing is more amazing than the ability of the American media to deep-six one story, while gang-banging another, ad infinitum.
In this post-modern age, when hundreds of media outlets have been squished together through mergers and acquisitions, and all of the heads of American mass media can meet together in a modest two-bedroom apt., news has become the mouthpiece of the mighty, and an appendage to the people who wield corporate power.
This maddening merger-mania has spawned the recent spate of one-issue, star/personality/sleaze-driven "stories" which have so inundated the media that they can be encapsulated in one name: O.J.; Monica; Chandra and the like.
The problem with this "all-O.J./Monica/Chandra, etc. - all-the-time" TV is that much of the world remains woefully uninformed about events that have occurred that may have a good deal more meaning than these sleazefests.
Barely a paragraph broke through the new corporate media morass about a jury verdict in the police framing and bombing case involving the two Earth First! activists stemming from the early 1990s.
The federal jury, after extended deliberations, found federal and local cops liable, and awarded over $4 million dollars in damages to the estate of the late Judi Bari and a severely-injured survivor of the bombing, Darryl Cherney.
When a bomb exploded in a Subaru holding Bari and Cherney, the FBI and Oakland police pointed the finger at the two environmentalists -- essentially charging that they bombed themselves! -- as they lay in serious and critical condition as the result of the blast. Twelve years later a U.S. jury found government officials liable for false arrest, illegal search, slander and conspiracy. Some of the feds involved in the case were veterans of the infamous COINTELPRO program, and were involved in the framing of Geronimo ji jaga (Pratt) and other former Black Panthers.
In a time when the FBI and other police agencies are being given loads of new monies as well as vast new powers over the people, isn't it important for people to know what they've done just 10-12 years ago? Isn't this arguably more important to the life of the nation than Britney's new love, or Hillary's new hairdo? Isn't this more important to the average American, especially in light of 9/11, when some evidence emerges that some government agencies had prior knowledge of the events of 9/11?
Two American citizens sat in their car on a nice, summer day in 1990, and were almost blown to bits. Judy Bari, to her dying day, argued, not only her innocence, but the guilt of the government agents, who miraculously appeared on the scene, within moments. A jury has vindicated her, in part. But, who tried to kill them? The lumber companies? The FBI? Why wasn't this story on every front page in America?
Text © copyright 2002 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
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