The Louisiana Shuffle

NPR News finally gets around to covering the "Jena Six" story and protest on Friday morning - oh wait, no, they were on it the day before that (so cutting edge)! Well those of us with the sense to listen to Democracy Now! heard a news story about the case way back on July 10th -two months ago! And readers of Common Dreams would have heard about it a week before that! So what's NPR's excuse for the slow shuffle on down to Louisiana? Audie Cornish states that after the conviction of Mychal Bell (on June 28, 2007) "the story was picked up by the Black media, especially radio, blogs and social networking sites..." And just in case you didn't get the message Renee Montagne concludes Cornish's piece with "For months the story of the "Jena Six" unfolded largely out of sight of the mainstream media. You can read about how African American bloggers helped generate...." And to think I wasn't even aware of the fact that Democracy Now! and Common Dreams were "Black media"! And all along I thought the problem was that NPR News was complacent, misleading, smug and lazy. My bad!