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Media bias in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu-Jamal

As the case of Pennsylvania death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal enters its 27th year, despite the growing body of evidence that supports both his innocence and the charge that he was denied a fair trial, the mainstream media have been relentless in their bias against this award-winning African-American journalist. This media bias is well documented by Covert Action Quarterly, FAIR.ORG, and the documentary film “Framing an Execution.”

Media coverage was sparse during Abu-Jamal’s May 17 Philadelphia hearing before a three-judge panel from the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The judges heard oral arguments on four different issues regarding the fairness of the original 1982 trial. Attorneys for Abu-Jamal, including Christina Swarns of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, argued that there is strong evidence that a racist judge and racist jury practices contributed to the sentencing of Abu-Jamal to death row.

Only progressive media like The San Francisco Bay View, a national Black newspaper, have published any of the 26 crime scene photos taken by photographer Pedro P. Polakoff. The photos—which the 1982 jury never saw—call into serious question the prosecution’s scenario.

But with a ruling from the May 17 appellate court anticipated at any time, the big-business press and their allies in the Fraternal Order of Police are rehashing an old tactic in their arsenal: trial by front page and jury made up of talk-show hosts.

They are unwilling to let Abu-Jamal exercise his constitutional rights to a fair trial with a jury of his peers in front of an unbiased judge, so lies and distortions about the case are presented as “facts” on the front pages of newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer, TV shows like NBC’s “Today,” and a recently released book co-authored by right-wing radio shock jock Michael Smerconish and Maureen Faulkner, widow of slain police officer Daniel Faulkner, entitled “Murder by Mumia.”

“Murder by Mumia” repeats the FOP’s official myths that “Mumia Abu-Jamal was unanimously convicted of the crime by a racially mixed jury based on the testimony of several eyewitnesses, his ownership of the murder weapon, matching ballistics, and Abu-Jamal’s own confession.”

“The Today Show” has invited Maureen Faulkner and Smerconish, a former lawyer and fundraiser for the FOP, to appear on Dec. 6 to talk about their book. The group International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal is demanding that “Today” give equal time to present information of Abu-Jamal’s innocence and about the unfair trial he received.

The New York Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition and other supporters will protest outside the “Today” taping in New York City on Dec. 6.

To ensure fairness for Abu-Jamal on “Today,” the group Journalists for Mumia, along with ICFFMAJ and Educators for Mumia, initiated their own media-activist campaign urging people to write the “Today Show” at today@msnbc.com asking it to present both sides of the Mumia Abu-Jamal/Daniel Faulkner case, by also featuring as guests Linn Washington, Jr., Philadelphia Tribune columnist and associate professor of journalism at Temple University, and Dr. Suzanne Ross, clinical psychologist and co-chair of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC. The International Action Center also helped launch an online petition for people to send to MSNBC. Go to www.iacenter.org.

As of result of the campaign, “Today” scheduled a telephone interview with Pam Africa of ICFFMAJ, who provided them with a press packet on the case.

The Fraternal Order of Police and the state powers that want to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal have always counted on people’s ignorance of and confusion about the facts surrounding this case. Since most people will never read the trial transcripts, the FOP feels free to present its own “facts”–lies that are never challenged and frequently repeated by mainstream media outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer. That newspaper publishes a regular column by the pro-death-penalty Smerconish, who recently tried out to replace “Imus in the Morning” on WNBC after host Don Imus was fired for racist remarks.

The official myths have been rehashed by former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Buzz Bissinger in Vanity Fair magazine (August 1995), which also ran the “widow-fighting-by-herself” myth, thus hiding the role of the FOP.

In 1998 on ABC’s “20/20,” Sam Donaldson made no effort to hide his racism as he stated, “African-American activists believe that a black man was railroaded, and will continue to believe it, no matter what’s presented to them.” Donaldson was talking about major African- American figures like Angela Davis, Cornel West, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez and many more. He failed to mention that most of the prosecution witnesses had credibility problems.

Today, Faulkner’s book also fails to mention all the discredited prosecution witnesses, that the police never performed the standard “wipe test” to check for gunshot residue on Abu-Jamal’s hands and clothing, that the fatal bullet was too damaged to link to the particular traits of Abu-Jamal’s gun, or that Abu-Jamal’s alleged “hospital confession” was first officially reported to police more than two months after the Dec. 9, 1981, shooting.

Polakoff’s crime scene photos also show police officer James Forbes holding both Faulkner’s and Abu-Jamal’s guns with his bare hands touching the metal parts.

On the 26th anniversary of Abu-Jamal’s arrest in connection with the shooting death of Faulkner, his supporters are readying themselves for the next stage of the struggle when the appeals court’s ruling is announced.

A demonstration at Philadelphia’s City Hall at noon on Dec. 8, followed by an indoor rally at 2 p.m. at the Friends Center, 1501 Cherry, will also be used to air new evidence in support of Abu-Jamal’s innocence and to make clear that he sits on death row due to his revolutionary outspokenness against police brutality and all forms of injustice.