A couple weeks ago, the nation focused on Jena, LA, the small 3,000-resident town that became the focal point of the latest chapter in America’s civil rights history.   With an estimated 30,000 people descending upon the town, the nation’s – and international media – covered the story of the “Jena 6″.   And almost as quickly as the media jumped all over the story, they disappeared, moving on to more ‘pithy’ matters like OJ’s aggressive efforts to recover his memoriabilia.

What will history say about this moment in time? Today, civil rights leaders will take credit for helping to  free Mychal Bell, who many feel was ‘over charged’ for the assault on a white teenager outside his high school. Instead of being tried as an adult, he will have to work his way through the juvenile justice system.  Black radio personalities such as Michael Baisden, Tom Joyner and Rickey Smiley will attribute the reduction of charges and Bell’s release to the power of black radio to spread the word about the indicident, and to inspire thousands of people to ride buses and endure the heat to make their presence known. 

Meanwhile, the national media is likely to see this as a blip in time, and probably many from Jena and around the country who are ticked that this isolated incident about a kid with a criminal past has garnered so much unnecessary energy.  “Why don’t those people fight for better education, jobs or stand up for kids and families who are doing the right thing?”, they ask.  

The lesson for nation media is that stories about race and ethnicity in the country must get coverage, and not not overlooked as ‘isolated’ incidents.   What failed America’s media in the 1960s (and well before that and even now) is what the famed Kerner Commission Report stated nearly 40 years ago:  “The media write and report from the standpoint of a white man’s world.”   Since most of America’s newspaper newsrooms are still more than 90% white (and most media), guess what, little has changed, even though many of the nation’s cities – small and large – are increasingly populated by blacks, Hispanics and Asians. 

So, while the media is fascinated by OJ, Michael Vick and ’illegal immigration’, a good bulk of the existing and potential readers and viewers are feeling burned, shunned and misrepresented.   The ‘Jena 6′ may not be a watershed moment for the ‘new’ Civil Rights Movement in this country, but should serve as a harsh reminder to our nation’s media to consciously reevaluate how to cover all of the news and its viewers in a more balanced, fair, accurate and thorough manner.