"All of us who are concerned about social justice should really realize it was our work, whether we're media makers or activists or just people that help spread the work, it was our work that freed those six high school students and really burst a movement together," says Flaherty. "This was a really historic moment. Fifty thousand people from around the country marched in Jena. This is the first time that I ever remember a march like this happening not because it was called by some national organization but it because it was called by the families at the heart of this struggle--the Jena 6 family members who organized for months without training or recognition from national media organizations."
The Jena 6 struggle happened when six students were facing life in prison for a school fight. The combination of activism and journalism that supported them at the grassroots level helped acquit them and now all six are in college.
Flaherty also followed the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina closely. He recounts briefly why it was so valuable to movements for justice to have investigative journalism in the aftermath:
"The corporate media did not want to tell the story of a lot of what happened in the days and weeks and months after Katrina. The clearest example is a criminal justice issue where we look at the police department and [in] the days after Katrina they were given carte blanche to do what they wanted. You have the Danziger Bridge case where Ronald Madison, a mentally handicapped young man, was shot by an officer, another office ran up and kicked him until he was dead. You have Henry Glover, the West Bank of New Orleans. Again, days after Katrina he was shot by one officer and then taken basically kidnapped by other officers. The next people saw his body he'd been burnt up. So, they basically killed him and then burned his body. And nobody wanted to cover that story."
Flaherty continues, "For months grassroots activists were organizing around it, were documenting the stories of witnesses. And eventually some grassroots activists got the story to Rebecca Solnit" who got the story picked up by ProPublica. The Nation magazine picked it up. And, Flaherty adds, years later, in 2008, Attorney General Eric Holder was willing to look at the cases and acknowledge that this injustice was really happening in the aftermath.
Flaherty finds "the loss of investigative journalism" in society shameful. Through Left Turn magazine and collaboration on blogs like the Louisiana Justice blog, a blog that covers criminal justice, workers' rights and other issues, he works to keep investigative journalism alive locally in New Orleans and nationally as well.
Overall, Flaherty wants others to understand that independent non-corporate media should be a part of any social justice organizing. What activists and journalists did together to free the Jena 6 shows why it should be a part of organizing. It's through that collaboration that more victories can be achieved.
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