[Elite media would have us believe they are engaged in a serious
reckoning with the racism of the US criminal justice system, that they
care about over-incarceration and prison conditions. Yet elite media
continues its silence about Mumia.] [[link removed]]

IF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL’S CASE IS A ‘NON-ISSUE,’ WHY HAVE MEDIA GONE
TO SUCH LENGTHS TO SILENCE HIM?  
[[link removed]]


 

Janine Jackson
May 1, 2021
FAIR
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_ Elite media would have us believe they are engaged in a serious
reckoning with the racism of the US criminal justice system, that they
care about over-incarceration and prison conditions. Yet elite media
continues its silence about Mumia. _

,

 

Philadelphia public broadcaster WHYY (4/24/21
[[link removed]])
was one of the few outlets to report on an April 24 rally seeking the
release from prison of Mumia Abu-Jamal
[[link removed]]. The story included
important information on Abu-Jamal, who is serving a life sentence for
the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

It noted that the case has “drawn scrutiny” over claims of police,
prosecutorial and judicial bias and misconduct. It cited new evidence
released as part of the appeal process, including a note from a key
prosecution witness asking the prosecuting attorney for money—the
sort of evidence that Johanna Fernandez, a history professor and part
of Abu-Jamal’s legal team, notes has in other instances led to a
defendant either being set free or getting an immediate new trial.

Along with Fernandez, the piece includes the voices of Abu-Jamal’s
brother Keith Cook, and MOVE member Pam Africa, as well as people who
traveled from around the country to call attention to Abu-Jamal’s
case, his current state of health—he has a number of debilitating
conditions, and has just had heart surgery—and to put his story in a
context of political prisoners here and around the world.

I confess I was still irked by WHYY using its lead paragraph to
frame the story like this:

The case has pitted Abu-Jamal’s supporters, including a long list of
national and international celebrities who say he was framed, against
police and their supporters, who resent the attention given to a man
convicted of murdering a fellow officer.

It bugs me, because those were the themes decades ago when Abu-Jamal
was first convicted and sentenced to death (VOICES WITH
VISION, 4/27/21
[[link removed]]).
That he was a “cause celebre”—and therefore, wink wink,
something something about liberal Hollywood, no need to pay
attention—and that the upset of anyone concerned about his deeply
flawed trial or his inappropriate sentencing was merely theatrical,
because, after all, he was “convicted,” wasn’t he?

Open to lies

Elite media at the time were open to straight-up lies: A
1995 WASHINGTON POST story (5/18/95
[[link removed]])
led with a macabre account from Faulkner’s widow, Maureen Faulkner,
about how when her husband’s bloody shirt was held up in court,
Abu-Jamal turned around and smiled at her. Except attorney Leonard
Weinglass and the court record show that Abu-Jamal wasn’t in court
when the shirt was displayed (EXTRA! UPDATE, 8/95
[[link removed]]).

[FAIR: The Media & Mumia: Were ABC and Vanity Fair Taken for a Ride?]

_ABC‘s 20/20 (7/11/99) returned to the Mumia Abu-Jamal story with
a breathless report of an improbable jailhouse confession
(FAIR.ORG, 8/11/99
[[link removed]])._

ABC‘s investigative news show 20/20 (12/9/98) employed a number of
techniques for their big 1998 piece—stating prosecution claims as
fact, even when they were disputed by some of the prosecution’s own
witnesses or the forensic record; stressing how a defense witness
admitted being intoxicated, while omitting that prosecution witnesses
said the same (EXTRA! UPDATE, 2/99
[[link removed]]).

At one point, actor and activist Ed Asner is quoted saying, “No
ballistic tests were done, which is pretty stupid”—but then host
Sam Donaldson’s voiceover cuts him off: “But ballistics
test _were_ done,” he says, referring to tests that suggested that
the bullet that killed Faulkner might have been the same caliber as
Abu-Jamal’s gun. But he didn’t note that tests had _not_ been
done to determine whether that gun had fired the bullet, or whether it
had been fired at all, or if there were gunpowder residues on
Abu-Jamal’s hands.

Producers from PEOPLE’S VIDEO NETWORK told FAIR at the time
(EXTRA! UPDATE, 2/99
[[link removed]]) that ABC not
only used clips they’d recorded from Abu-Jamal without permission,
but they added layers of echo, making him sound, they said, “like a
cave-dwelling animal.”

No one was too surprised when it was revealed that in a letter asking
permission from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to
interview Abu-Jamal (a request that was denied), 20/20 pointed out
that “we are currently working in conjunction with Maureen Faulkner
and the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police” (EXTRA!
UPDATE, 2/99 [[link removed]]).

The main story has been no story

After that, the main story has been non-coverage.

For instance, in 2006, when Abu-Jamal won the right to appeal on three
grounds—including a jury purged of Black people, the prosecutor
lowering jurors’ sense of responsibility by saying their decision
“would not be final,” and the fact that judge Albert Sabo was all
kinds of biased—the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS told reporter Dave
Lindorff that it was a “non-issue” (EXTRA!, 3–4/06
[[link removed]])—although
when a judge overturned the death sentence in 2001, the paper
(12/19/01) found time to editorialize: “Let Mumia Rot in
Darkness.”

The late great media critic Ed Herman (EXTRA!, 9–10/00
[[link removed]]) reported how
the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER wouldn’t cover rallies and tribunals in
support of Abu-Jamal, calling them “stunts,” but when the
Fraternal Order of Police bought a full-page ad in the NEW YORK
TIMES, that merited a story.

In 2000, when Amnesty International declared that the original trial
was “deeply flawed,” the INKY (2/18/00) made it the fifth
“news brief” on page 2B.

But if Mumia Abu Jamal’s case is a non-issue that only celebrities
care about, why the active silencing?

[Extra!: Witness for the Prosecution]

_NPR‘s Scott Simon (8/19/99) “skillfully provided a brief for the
prosecution under the pretense of covering both sides”
(EXTRA!, 11–12/95
[[link removed]])._

In 1994, NPR cancelled plans for a series of commentaries from
Abu-Jamal—who is, after all, a journalist, a former head of the
Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists—after Senator Bob Dole
threatened their funding. They said it was because it was a “highly
polarized and political controversy”—which they proceeded to say
nothing about for the following year (EXTRA!, 11–12/95
[[link removed]]).

When DEMOCRACY NOW! prepared to air commentaries, station KRTI, out
of Philadelphia’s Temple University, cancelled the show and all
of PACIFICA news (EXTRA! UPDATE, 4/97 [[link removed]]),
with a station VP explaining: “What’s good enough for NPR is
good enough for me.”

And when a Vermont college aired a taped commencement address from
Abu-Jamal, it led Philadelphia lawmakers to throw together something
called the Revictimization Relief Act, allowing crime victims  or
prosecutors to sue inmates whose behavior behind bars “creates
mental anguish” for the victims. Clearly unconstitutional, violating
both free speech and due process rights, it was dubbed the Silencing
Act by many, who noted that it didn’t just curtail prisoners’
right to speak, but journalists’ and all of our rights to hear them
(FAIR.ORG, 10/22/14
[[link removed]]).

Media’s response was a shrug: The NEW YORK TIMES ran an AP piece
(10/21/14
[[link removed]])
with the headline “Pennsylvania: Gov Signs Law to Help Protect Crime
Victims.”

Elite media would have us believe they are engaged in a serious
reckoning with the racism of the US criminal justice system, that they
care about over-incarceration and prison conditions. And keeping
people behind bars just because powerful people want them there, and
not due to the merits of their case? Well, that’s what Other
Countries do.

If only there were a case, 40 years’ worth of case, that would allow
them to explore those ideals—if not to do justice by Mumia Abu-Jamal
(they can’t return what’s been taken from him), then to do some
semblance of justice by their own claims of concern.

_Janine Jackson is FAIR’s program director and producer/host of
FAIR’s syndicated weekly radio show CounterSpin. She contributes
frequently to FAIR’s newsletter Extra!, and co-edited The FAIR
Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the ’90s (Westview
Press).  Her articles have appeared in various publications,
including In These Times and the UAW’s Solidarity, and in books
including Civil Rights Since 1787 (New York University Press) and Stop
the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism (New
World Library). Jackson is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and
has an M.A. in sociology from the New School for Social Research._

_FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging
corporate media bias, spin and misinformation. We work to invigorate
the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press
and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest,
minority and dissenting viewpoints. We expose neglected news stories
and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive
group, we believe that structural reform is ultimately needed to break
up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public
broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of
information.  _

_We rely on your support to keep running. Please consider
donating. DONATE [[link removed]]_

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