"Outlandish coverage" of Black political leaders by the media.

That's how Hazel Dukes, president of the New York State National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, has described what is being increasingly seen in Black communities across the City as unfair and racially motivated reporting by some sections of the mainstream media.

And the highly respected Dukes and the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization, which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary with a successful convention in New York City, don't plan to ignore the overwhelmingly negative portrayal of Black political leadership in the City and the state without commenting on it and complaining about the trend.

"We fully respect the First Amendment right of the press to report on the issues and on the performance of all of our elected officials," Dukes told the Carib News. "We will uphold that right. I believe the press has the right to report. But the emphasis should be on issues but certainly not on personalities. Too much of what we are seeing is about personalities, not the issues that affect people's lives."

Clearly, she insisted, Black leadership was being targeted by the media with negative portrayals.

"The leaders are being targeted," she declared. "They have always been targeted."

The state's NAACP's leader voiced her concern about the "outlandish" and biased coverage after New York's Governor David Paterson complained publicly a few days ago about what he characterized as a well orchestrated and racially biased media campaign that was designed to undermine his administration and ultimately to dissuade him from running next year.

"My feeling is it's being orchestrated, it's a game and people who pay attention know that," Paterson told a radio audience.

A few weeks ago, the Governor articulated the same charges in an interview with the New York Carib News. He complained then that certain sections of the media in the City were ignoring his administration's achievements, such as balancing the state's budget, providing unprecedented help to the poor at a time of great financial distress, and preventing New York from falling into a financial abyss like California which was handing out IOUs.

Dukes focused attention not simply on the coverage of Paterson, but of U.S. Congressman Charles Rangel, chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and now the media's attempt to weaken the mayoral campaign of William "Bill" Thompson, by ignoring his accomplishments that stretch to his days as president of the former Board of Education, which ran the City's school system, the nation's largest.

"Now they are beginning to go after him, not on the issues but on things which they were making up," Dukes charged. "They are talking about things which happened when he was president of the New York City school system. But they are not giving him credit for working with Rudy Crew (a former Board Chancellor) to stop social promotion in the school system. They (media) took away all of the positive things which happened under Bill Thompson, but opted to emphasize anything that appeared to be negative. Some of the stuff that they said definitely wasn't true."

Then, there was the case of Congressman Rangel, who was unfairly targeted by the media, not on issues but on personal matters, she contended.

"He went on his vacation and they had the press there to see him in his shorts," she charged. "He was on a vacation. He wasn't skipping out on his duty."

But the current racially biased coverage was a continuation of a trend, she said.

"It was done to David Dinkins when he was Mayor of the City of New York," she complained. "He couldn't do anything right. They focused on his clothes, his playing golf or tennis, things like that."

She too suffered during the Dinkins Administration when she was president of the Off-track Betting Corporation, Dukes said.

"They targeted me when I was at OTB. OTB is now run to the ground, so much so that Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave it up," she added. "I couldn't hire anyone who was Black, regardless of their qualifications. Every day I was portrayed as a racist if I hired a well qualified black person."

Dukes also cited the case of former New York State Supreme Court Justice Laura Blackburn, when she was head of the City's Housing Department. Blackburn was hounded out of office for buying a couch, the NAACP leader said, but the same media ignored the fact that a white city official had "the same kind of couch."

"What's happening now brings back memories every day," she insisted. "We know what it is."

In voicing his frustration over the overwhelmingly negative portrayal in the media, Governor Paterson contended that the media's characterization of him as "the accidental Governor" was part of the campaign to tarnish his image.

But he wasn't alone, Paterson said. Massachusetts' Governor Deval Patrick was also suffering from similar treatment and President Barack Obama could expect the same.

"The reality is that the next victim on the list is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than try to reform a health care system," Paterson contended.

The Governor took aim at Dominic Carter, the host of a daily news oriented program on New York One, the city's 24-hour cable television news channel. In a television interview with the Rev. Al Sharpton, Carter, who is Black, asked the civil rights leader about the Governor's presence at a Manhattan nightclub, but Paterson saw Carter's action in raising the issue as part of an attempt to curry favor with white critics of Black politicians.

Asked about the Governor's comments, State Senator John Sampson (D-Brooklyn), Chairman of the Senate Democratic Conference, said that the current economic climate and the financial mess inherited by the Democratic leadership from the Republicans were the main reasons for much of the criticisms.

"If you are in leadership, especially at this time with such a critical economic downturn, people would put the blame on you. Whoever is there in that position at a time of political or economic strife, people will put the blame on you. They are going to look to those persons to blame," said Sampson. "But at the same time, those of us who are in these critical positions know that the cream always rises to the top. We have to take advantage of this situation and show that in times of crisis we, as individuals, have risen to the top by taking charge amidst the chaos and disorganization and basically [by] implementing structures that balance the ship."

Sampson was quick to say that looking to the next state election and Paterson's planned run for office in 2010, "we expect to back the Governor."