The Nation - News from June 12, 1988

Several news organizations were banned from a church service today in New York to be attended by black teen-ager Tawana Brawley, who claims she was abducted and raped by white men. The news organizations were targeted during a rally in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn after a tirade by lawyer C. Vernon Mason about a Newsday story earlier this year that said the Rev. Al Sharpton was a federal informant. Mason, Sharpton and lawyer Alton Maddox have made a racial issue of the case in which, after initially cooperating with authorities, Brawley and her family have refused to participate further, charging a cover-up. After security guards asked Newsday reporters to leave Saturday’s rally, 18 reporters from other news organizations walked out in a show of support. Because of the walkout, which Sharpton termed “unprofessional,” Brawley’s advisers said several news organizations would be banned from the morning church service.