What's the price of a media that fails to properly cover an ethnic American community?
There is one aspect of the Antoine "Tony" Rezko trial that no one in the mainstream American media is covering.
They are covering the Rezko scandal and its government corruption implications. They are covering Rezko's ties to Obama and local politicians like Gov. Rod Blagjevich. They are even expanding into how the corruption case reached all the way to Karl Rove and the White House in an effort to take the heat off by trying to fire U.S. Attorney for the Northern District Patrick Fitzgerald.
But they are not covering the Arab American community, and they are therefore missing much of the story, or are forced to backtrack to recover what they can.
The media is scrambling to learn more about Rezko, wondering how he was able to get away with what he did, allegedly, for so long without notice. Rezko has been associated with several Illinois governors, not just Blagojevich, the focus on his alleged corruption. But he was also a fundraiser for former Gov. George Ryan and he and others in his circle raised funds for former Gov. Jim Edgar, too.
In fact, one of Edgar's fundraisers and supporters was Ali Ata, who this week pleaded guilty to government charges of income tax fraud and exchanging donations for jobs, through Rezko.
The problem has been that all of this happened right under the noses of the Chicago news media like the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. None of the newspapers were at these fundraisers, that were public events, where Rezko stood next to Blagojevich and other elected officials including Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
In fact, when Rezko was indicted, most didn't even know who he was. They called me, and every media outlet, when the Rezko indictment was announced, ran to buy copies of my book (they they never covered, of course) "Arabs of Chicagoland" because that was the ONLY place where anyone could find a picture of Rezko, and now a picture of Ata.
The media took the picture from my book and reprinted it without attribution. Broadcast it on television. And never mentioned that it was from my book. Hey, they never reviewed it or covered it (except WLS TV, and a short, snide mention in the Chicago Sun-Times -- my former alma mater).
Imagine how better the stories would have been if the mainstream mnedia had simply done its job and covered the Arab American community not as a target of terroorism charges, but as an important component of Chicago's day-to-day life.
Even when Arab American journalists approached Chicago Magazine to do a feature identifying the "leaders" of Chicago's Arab American community, or to profile Rezko -- we knew him well and the circles in which he allegedly did his clout dance. They said no, and then assigned the story to someone else ... who then reached out to us to get the basic facts because there were no stories on Lexis-Nexis about Rezko, Ata and at least two dozen Arab Americans who are all clinging to the broken pieces of the Rezko iceberg like polar bears struggling to survive global warming.
The circle of corruption around Rezko has a very Arab American flavor to it. I can tell you who Individual "B - E" are in the Ata plea agreement. But I won't. But you can read my column (and the column of other Arab Americans) on how the growing Rezko circle of scandals is as much a reflection on the failure of Arab Americans in Chicago to hold their "leaders" accountable at www.ArabWritersGroup.com as it is an assessment of the failure of mainstream journalists to cover the Arab American community.
Do the work yourselves :)
Ray Hanania
www.hanania.com