Chauncey Bailey on community media

Kristal Brent Zook was one of the last to interview Oakland investigative journalist Chancey Bailey before he was slain in broad daylight for a story he was working on that would've spotlighted the criminal practices tied up in the city's Your Black Muslim Bakery. In the Columbia Journalism Review, Zook is able to make plain Bailey's belief in a community accessible media model; a belief he catalyzed with letters, meetings, solicitations, investors, and no small amount of sweat to create OUR TV (Opportunities in Urban Renaissance), "a small leased-access cable channel that Bailey launched, together with his partner and financier, Leonard Stephens, in December of 2004."

Bailey also champions black ownership:

"When a black kid comes up to me in West Oakland, a seven-year-old, and looks at me wearing a tie, and asks, ‘Are you a business man?’ I say, ‘Yes, I am a business man. Don’t let the black face convince you that I’m not.’"