• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, August 6, 2007

Last Thursday, Chauncey Bailey, editor of the Oakland Post, a free weekly newspaper catering to the Bay Area's African-American community, was murdered. Although the investigation has only begun, and no charges were filed at press time on Friday, his killing may belong to a homicide category generally alien to Americans: the murder of journalists to silence their reporting.

Bailey, 58, was shot multiple times in the head and back at 7:30 a.m. near his office, according to news reports from the scene. The Oakland Tribune quoted a police spokesman as saying it was probably a contract killing, given "the witness statements, the shooter's mannerisms and how the crime was committed."

Less than 24 hours later, about 200 Oakland police staged a pre-dawn raid on a local business, Your Black Muslim Bakery, and several nearby houses. They detained and questioned about 20 individuals as they sought suspects and evidence in "killings, shootings, robberies and a kidnapping."

Although the police said there was no evidence linking any of these people to Bailey's murder, a colleague at the Post, Joseph Debro, told the Tribune that Bailey had been working on a story about a bankruptcy filing by the bakery when he was killed. Adding to the general air of menace, assistant police chief Howard Jordan remarked that several men sought in the raid are "very violent individuals who need to be in custody."

Although any connection between Bailey's reporting and his murder remains a matter of speculation for now, his death has served to draw attention to an often underappreciated source of investigative journalism: the community weekly.

Bailey himself was remembered by friends as a tenacious and frequently confrontational reporter, who reported on controversial topics, such as political corruption, gang violence and unethical dealings in the hip-hop world. His reporting sometimes resulted in personal threats, according to Derrick Nesbitt, previously a co-host with Bailey on a cable access channel.

However, Bailey was not alone in doing courageous reporting at the local level. (The Oakland Post has a circulation of about 50,000.) Larry Grimes, president of WB Grimes & Co., which buys and sells local newspapers nationwide, says they deliver superior investigative journalism for several reasons.

"Obviously, they are on the front lines of news reporting in the local markets they serve," Grimes notes. "They also tend to throw all their news-gathering resources into micro-[reporting], covering the local market, from the courthouse to what's happening down the block." "Sometimes, those issues can be quite controversial, so there can be friction."

In a remark reminiscent of Bailey's work, Grimes adds: "in the inner-city community, it can mean taking on drug lords or trying to rid a block of crime, which can include exposing people the newspaper believes are at the root of the problem."

From a business perspective, however, such tenacity may help weeklies' long-term survival. While regional dailies have suffered ad revenue declines in recent years, local weeklies are holding their own. According to Grimes, most of the 150 weeklies he has helped sell over the past three years have enjoyed ad revenue growth ranging from 5% to 15%, depending on the market. Grimes attributed much of that growth to local advertising and classified categories, where weeklies remain stronger than daily counterparts.