Reporters investigated Bailey killing, and made a difference

When Chauncey Bailey, the editor of The Oakland Post, in California, was gunned down in broad daylight, reported the New York Times, “the decimation of local media, … precluded large-scale investigative work” into his death and the dirty laundry revealed by the official response.

“After his death, a group of reporters — some retired, some out of work — with support from foundations and the University of California, Berkeley, banded together to continue his investigation into a local business called Your Black Muslim Bakery and to look at any role the bakery may have played in Mr. Bailey’s murder and at the role of the police in its investigation…

“The group, named The Chauncey Bailey Project, has had a deep impact on the city’s public life, revealing a jailhouse videotape that suggested a wider conspiracy in the murder and which the police seemingly ignored, and helping force the resignation of the Oakland police chief, Wayne Tucker.”

Journalism that, as the headline said, “made a difference.” There could be no better tribute to a journalist.