Editor-publisher in Jena, La., says his community and his newspaper are not racist

The editor and publisher of The Jena Times wrote this week that he and his son stopped giving interviews to national news media after the British Broadcasting Corp. "twisted everything that was said to make us look like fools" and an unnamed U.S. news outlet's report of a later interview "was twisted to the point that we did not even recognize it."

In an editorial headlined "Editor addresses a world audience," Sammy Franklin, right, defended his town and LaSalle Parish against media representations of racism in light of the "Jena Six" case that prompted protesters from all over the nation and journalists from much of the globe to converge on the town of 3,000 on Thursday. He said racists in the parish, which is 12 percent black, are "few and far between." He also defended his weekly newspaper, saying it had reported the truth about the controversy and treated African Americans with equality since he bought it in 1968. (Read more)

For the paper's advance story on the protest, its report on recent court action involving one of the Jena Six, and its chronology of events, click here. Franklin's son, Assistant Editor Craig Franklin, wrote in his column, "Lost in all of the racial headlines is the fact that the school, despite all the distractions it has faced in the past year, managed to exceed all projections for academic growth and is listed with the highest academic rating that a school can achieve." (Read more) For a balanced and comprehensive profile of Jena, from Todd Lewan of The Associated Press, click here. For an update of events since Thursday, from Abbey Brown of The Town Talk, the daily paper in nearby Alexandria, click here. UPDATE: For an interview with Paul Carty, executive editor of The Town Talk, by Al Tompkins of The Poynter Institute, click here.