Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)
Box 16 College Station
New York, NY  10030
Hotline:  (212) 330-8029   

December 5, 2007

For Immediate Release:
Contact:  Suzanne Ross  (917) 584-2135
                Justin Lumumba (347) 267-8259

    
Picket to Be At NBC’s Today Show, December 6, for Innocent Man on Death Row

       
The New York Post’s typically inflammatory language promotes  confrontation outside NBC’s Today Show on December 6  with their fabricated story (12/3/07) that the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) is “threatening to storm the streets of Rockefeller Center.”  The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) has called for a picket across the street from NBC on December 6 as part of a campaign to demand equal time on the Today Show, which is scheduled to host  Maureen Faulkner and Michael Smerconish on that day to promote their new book, Murdered by Mumia.  
          
In writing an article highlighting the scheduled picket at NBC, the Post never contacted the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition but, instead, provided yet another platform for Maureen Faulkner to express her desire for vengeance.  Faulkner is the widow of Office Daniel Faulkner, who was killed on the night of December 9, 1981; his murder was a crime for which Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted in a highly controversial trial.  Amnesty International (AI), in a 2000 report, stated that the trial “failed to meet minimum standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings” and that numerous factors “render the verdict and sentence fundamentally unsound.”  AI called for a new and fair trial.  Michael Smerconish is a Philadelphia talk show host, long allied with the Fraternal Order of Police and its campaign for the execution of Jamal.    
        
Pam Africa and Cortnee Anderson of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal spoke last Friday with Jaclyn Levine, who is producing the December 6 program.  They presented information dealing with the importance, in the interest of fairness and accuracy, of getting “equal time” on the Today Show.  Levine promised to get back to them, but has yet to do so.      
       
Press reviews of the book have already referred to Jamal, an author of five published books and a recipient of hundreds of honors and awards, including Honorary Citizenship of Paris in 2004, as a “thug.”  Given ABC’s widely denounced 20-20 “hatchet job” of Jamal in 1998, Jamal supporters anticipate a similar presentation on the Today Show.  Faulkner played a key role in the 20-20 program, as well, working closely with the Fraternal Order of Police, as the producer of that show acknowledged in writing.  In several interviews in the past week, Faulkner has stated unequivocally that she wants to see Jamal dead, nothing short of that, and has given a hint of the distortions and lies that are to come by stating that he had "a jury of his own choosing."  Racial bias on the part of the prosecutor in the selection of the jury is a critical issue being given serious consideration by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, where Jamal’s case is current being reviewed.  If racial bias is judged by this federal court as present in the selection of the jury, Jamal would be granted a new trial.     
       
Journalistic fairness and accuracy call for “equal time” for those who have information that refutes the view that will be aired when Faulkner and Smerconish are on the show. 
       
The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition will have a picket across the street from NBC in support of Jamal, in support of evidence that challenges what Faulkner and Smerconish regularly promulgate, and in support of fair  media that allows the public to hear important information rather than only a very biased  and distorted picture in a campaign for executing someone regardless of guilt or innocence.   
       
For additional information see:  www.freemumia.com or www.journalistsformumia.com