Alice in Radioland » media commentary http://aliceinradioland.org journalism by pauline bartolone Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:41:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 ‘Yusuf Bey IV Indicted in Journalist Slaying’ http://aliceinradioland.org/2009/05/12/yusuf-bey-iv-indicted-in-journalist-slaying/ http://aliceinradioland.org/2009/05/12/yusuf-bey-iv-indicted-in-journalist-slaying/#comments Tue, 12 May 2009 21:17:16 +0000 pauline http://aliceinradioland.org/?p=238 That headline, splattered across bay area newspapers a couple of weeks ago, might have alarmed me. I spent an evening documenting Yusuf Bey IV at Your Black Muslim Bakery back in 2006. It was all for a series of stories I did about the community response to liquor stores, particularly the over-concentration of them in West Oakland.

At the time, Bey was under investigation for his possible involvement in the assault on two Muslim- owned liquor stores in Oakland.

When I entered the Bakery I was searched. After I recorded him giving a speech to a small group of followers, I was taken to Bey’s empty upstairs apartment and interviewed him in the presence of a bodyguard about liquor stores in Oakland for close to an hour.

At no time did I feel my safety was in danger. In fact I was taken off guard by how such a young man, with apparent insecurities and little life experience could be responsible for leading a powerful organization.

In the end I did a long radio feature for KALW news (which no longer hosts the link to the program) and for NPR’s Day to Day. It won me the radio award in my graduating year at UC Berkeley School of Journalism (’07). A snippet of the interview was included in A Day Late in Oakland, produced by Zach Stauffer, which is now doing the film festival circuit.

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