Journalist

DR DRE WANTS TO ERASE HIS UGLY PAST

To be honest, we have absolutely DESPISED NWA founder Dr Dre since 1991 when he viciously attacked a female journalist because he didn’t like something she wrote. The writer, Dee Barnes, had interviewed Ice Cube about his split from NWA and Dre approached her at Def Jam party in LA. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her several times into a brick wall while his friend with a gun “watched.” When a guy tried to come to her aid, the “friend” pistol whipped him and broke his teeth. Dre continued the violent beating all the way into the women’s restroom. (He attacked a lot of women in those days, including his girlfriends.) After the beating, the hip hop world turned its back on Dee and she lost her job and career. Of course Dre went on to become a billionaire. We still don’t like him, but now he is trying to do something right. He and music mogul Jimmy Iovine are establishing a special high school in LA and remarkably, it has NOTHING to do with music. The new Leimert Park school will be aimed at black and latino students, and hopes to develop young innovators and entrepreneurs in the areas of design, business, and technology – creative enterprises of the future. Sounds incredible. Maybe the near-fatal brain aneurism he had in January inspired Dre to do something right.

Photo Credit: BACKGRID-USA,

RONAN FARROW VS MATT LAUER: WHO DO YOU BELIEVE?

Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow is one of the most important books we have read this year. AT LONG LAST, someone has cared enough – and been BRAVE enough -to document some of the sex crimes perpetrated by men in powerful positions against young women. These cronies covered up for each other for a long time and less are getting away with it now, thanks to people like Ronan Farrow. Matt Lauer has long had a questionable reputation as a womanizer – we just didn’t realize how bad it was. Same with Harvey Weinstein. Both were extensively examined in the book. Now, disgruntled Matt Lauer is questioning Farrow’s reporting practices as “flawed” – hoping to raise doubts about his accuracy. Farrow’s information was fact checked and re-checked by his diligent publisher. No doubts here.

Photo Credit: BACKGRID-USA

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER LISA LING GETS THE JOB DONE

Lisa Ling has always been one of our favorite journalists. Did you know she got her first job as a news reporter at 18? We first saw her on the Oprah Winfrey Network and she’s had her own show, This is Life with Lisa Ling, on CNN for the past six years. We like the way she investigates unusual segments of American society – she has an innocent curious approach, without the somewhat sleazy point of view that some male reporters have. Lisa brought her little girl and her camera to Pacific Palisades to take some photographs today – maybe she’s working on a pandemic story…

Photo Credit: BACKGRID-USA