Journalist killed; journalism continues

The Center for Investigative Reporting launched the Chauncey Bailey Project in 2007, after the local news editor was shot down in the street in Oakland, Calif. The San Francisco Chronicle mounted its own investigation.

The Committee to Protect Journalists calls Bailey's death the first targeted killing of a journalist in the United States since 1993.

This week, the headlines are Man agrees to guilty plea in Oakland journalist's killing, Chilling account of killing editor, Oakland cops in hot water and Grand jury to probe Oakland editor's slaying.

Meanwhile, Democracy Now has an interview with Chauncey Bailey Project head Robert Rosenthal about the case, how reporters joined together to continue Bailey's work, and whether that model might be the future of investigative journalism, with newspapers all over the country having financial difficulties.

Bailey was a young reporter when we both worked at the Hartford Courant in the 1970s. He went on to the Detroit News and several California papers, and was back in his hometown as editor of the Oakland Post, where his work in community journalism included an investigation into the finances of an Oakland business at the time of his death.