Transcripts For CSPAN3 National Press Club Discussion On Coverage Of Rapper Nipsey Hussles Death 20240714

Welcome everybody. I like how you instantly got silent. Welcome. On behalf of the National Press Club Journalism institute , i am happy you are joining us on this room and on cspan. I am the executive director of the National Press Club Journalism institute where we are working to close the gap between journalism and civic engagement. This is a really Important Program in service to that mission. I want to tell you a little bit about how it came about. Back in april, ava to burn a was given an honor as part of the Free Expression words. As she accepted her honor she talked about Nipsey Hussle and dedicated it to him. She talked about the la times and their coverage. I want to show you what she said. Tonight i want to dedicate this award to someone who was and is important. Someone who used his arts in dynamic ways. He is a rap artist, and entrepreneurial activist from the part of the country i am from. Very close to compton, where i grew. His name is Nipsey Hussle. He told the truth through his art. The truth of his family, his feelings, his lock, his community. His city, his world, his dreams, his demands, his actions and ideas. His love for his people. His loss echoes throughout the world. His life viewed as the triumph it is and was and will long be. This week i have been motivated and deeply moved by the press coverage of this brother from southcentral los angeles. Specifically, an area in South Central la that we called the 60s. His life has galvanized the press response that has become a real powerful moment for me and so many people who so rarely see that kind of attention given to people like him. The la times, or city newspaper in a front prayed spread with a beautiful headline read a legend in his city. They published attribute article days after his mother written by a black reporter, garrett kennedy. Profiling the totality of nancys talent and attention with great insight and understanding. I gasped when i saw it to layout the words, the way they have honored him on the page. It was another black journalist, Nicole Hannah jones of the New York Times who tweeted that the layout and love shown by the la times was such a profound example for journalists who are of the culture they are writing about as often as possible about with depth of knowledge. The intuitive gravitas is so important. Garrett did nipsey justice salute. That was her tweet. That is really powerful. Soon after that, i was talking to a colleague and friend, joe geisler about our mission. She had also been at the museum that night. I was telling her how Central Trust was in what we were trying to accomplish. She said, find out how the la times did it. So, enter del wilbur who may have invited some of you here tonight. He is a member of the National Press club board of governors. And he connects us to the right people at the la times. They will be eager to tell us how this coverage came about. What led up to this moment and what has followed it. We enlisted amberley adams, who is also a member of the National Press club word of governors and the correspondent. Kimberly will introduce our la times team. Thank you kimberly. Thank you. Hello everybody. Thank you all so much for coming out tonight. This is an incredibly important topic. If any of you have a chance after this is done to go back and look at some of the Amazing Stories the la times did, i think that would be of great benefit to you. It is astounding coverage. I will introduce our wonderful panel. First to my left is angel jennings. Angel jennings is a reporter for the metro section of the Los Angeles Times. She covers issues that affect residents in south los angeles. Since joining the times in 2011, angel has written for the business section and covered education. She is a native of washington, dc. And graduated from the university of nebraska. Next to her we have erica smith who is an assistant metro editor for the Los Angeles Times. Hello. She previously worked for the Sacramento Bee where she was an Editorial Board member covering housing, homelessness, and social justice issues. Before that she wrote for the indianapolis star. She is the recipient of sigma delta chai award for column writing and is a graduate of Ohio University and a native of cleveland. Thank you. But that is not all. On the phone we have garrick kennedy. Can we hear your disembodied voice . Hello. Hello. Derek is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times where he has covered music and pop culture since 2009. He is on the front line at award shows and is accessible and profiles hundreds of the music industrys biggest players including mariah carey, drake, carrie underwood, nicki minaj, diana ross, kendrick lamarr, and the weekend. In 2012, kennedy was named the emerging journalist of the year by the National Association of black journalists. In 2014, the advocate featured him in an annual under 40 list. He is also the author of parental discussion and the dawn of gangster rap. Thank you garrett. Many of you already know who Nipsey Hussle was. But, some of you may not have the full picture of the person he was and why his death struck so hard. I think the best way to give you a small snapshot of that is to read some of garricks coverage from the la times. This is a condensed version of one of the pieces that he wrote. Here is the thing to understand about hustle and why his death is exceptionally devastating. Not only to those of us who live and breathe hiphop, but the also reside in his birthplace of south bailey. He was more than a rapper , not that there is anything wrong with just wrapping, because there isnt. Driven by a rapacious desire to reinvest in the street that raised him and rebuild the community. Hustle became an entrepreneur, community organizer, activist, and mentor. And he transformed into a rap star. His death in front of the stripmall he was redeveloping feels particularly cruel. Hustle for never shied away from the legs and stumbles that came with growing up in south la in the 90s. He made music for the street hustlers and those of us struggling to make ends meet. And he became a local hero for using the same fortune he got from wrapping and pouring it into the neighborhood. It is easy to root for the man who sold copies of his mixed tapes out of the parking lot of the strip mall and turned right around and opened a shop in that same mall the second he could afford it. Hustle had big dreams for his hood and it is not just tragic, but unfair that he was cut down in the middle of revitalizing a community that raised him. Those are just some of garricks words about Nipsey Hussle. So, i am going to start with garrick and ask you to tell us a little bit more about who nipsey hustle was to the community. Nipseys importance to the community is something that we are still really fully understanding. Because, there are so many stories that have yet to be told about his influence. But to back up a little bit, he is somebody whos wrap dreams had been in fruition for the last decades. This album he put out called victory lap was nominated for a grammy a couple months before he was killed. That is what put him into the mainstream. But people who were aware and followed him especially knew who he was. He had been putting out mixed tapes for about a decade. One of the things that came out was making the decision to do a limited prepping of his mix. He decided to put a sticker on 100, which seemed steep to a lot of people. But he was saying i know the value of this work, and if you want it you will pay for it. And people did. One of those was jayz who bought 100 copies of it. People started to understand that he was really serious about how we was approaching his rap career from a business perspective. Even though other rappers before him knew how to translate their rap career into a really smart, savvy business plan, he was somebody whos plan was redeveloping the streets where he came from and never left. That is what made him different from everybody else. Angel, can you tell me a little bit about how you ended up on this story and what prepared you to cover the story . Yes. Music is not my terrain. I cover the people. All the problems they face and the problems of south bailey, which include cities of compton and south bailey. People know it as South Central. That is how nipsey described his neighborhood as South Central. I lived in the community and covered it. You can see his influence throughout the streets. He had shirts that were sold out of his store at crenshaw. He took a name of a street that might have had a negative connotation outside of the neighborhood. He took that and harnessed it and restored the pride back into the community. You saw those suits shirts all over. He had a stripmall. I saw his influence and i would drive past his store every day to work. Then, his death happened. I got a call that Something Big happened on the weekend. I was with my family and was told he passed away, can you put in a few calls. That is what i do. I called Law Enforcement offices. I realized this is a story that needs to be told from the ground by the people who cared for him and love him the most. So i got to work the next day. I said let me tell the story about his life and legacy. With my editor, we talked about what he was doing with that stripmall. And this area that is facing tremendous pressure of identification, of housing crisis. He was just trying to reclaim that area and try to do Something Better with it and bring back stores for the community. And keep black people in the neighborhood. Let me tell that story. And i got to work. I will let you get up from there. Can you tell me about the genesis of the coverage . How it came in and how people initially wanted to cover it, and how it changed over time . I have only been there since december. I moved from sacramento. I had gotten into the story because i was the night editor. That was my first editorship. He was literally shot 20 minutes before i got to work. I spent the evening, other than talking to angel bringing in the feeds from everybody. Some of the reporters had been out there talking to people. I monitored social media. One of those things was clear from looking at the data we had and looking at social traffic. It was moving from a crime story to a community story. I can tell you that that night, looking at the data the back story had more traffic between 4 pm and midnight then the entire work i had all day. It was a story we kept updating. That was an early indication of how big of a story this would be. Being new to la, and i dont presume to know everything about it. But, i remember not being able to sleep at night reading garrett column and talking to angel the next day. We usually have our morning metro editor meeting and talk about stories we are going to do and how we will cover it. After talking to angel and reading garrett column and looking at twitter traffic, it was clear it was going to be a community story. We wanted to cover it like a crime story, which normally you would do. We had to do that story, of course. But angel wanted to do a different story. I thought it was a good idea aced on my gut and what i had read. We marched along this path, she and i and she did a great story that ended up doing really well. And we did our crime story. The interesting thing is we have data now to back up our gut feelings about things. We could see in real time at the end of the day how much better her story did, not just locally in la, but nationally and internationally versus the crime story we did. That was a really big clue for us as to how we would continue to cover the story. With garricks input and angels expertise in this area, we were able to do some good coverage. My role is just basically trying to convince everybody else it was a good idea. Go ahead angel. The first story i was writing about the community and revitalizing that stripmall, i thought was going to be a frontpage story. And it wasnt until the next day that it was buried and did not make the front page. That baffled me. It wasnt centerstage. It was about the crime in small letters about him trying to develop the area. Then, another story about him being working in the community. I wanted to tell the community stories. And i couldnt figure out why this wasnt coming out. Nipsey hussle is a link to south la. To the people and the promise and the things that happen in the community. And i wanted to make sure we highlighted that effect. His death was a brazen murder. It was hellacious and people want to know about that, but there is a man and a father here. He was deeply cared about and valued in his community. That is why it was important to get it out. Lets pause and talk about what is overriding all of this. The la times like many newsrooms across the country isnt majority white and doesnt have that many people of color in the newsroom. Can you talk, erica first then garrick about how those conversations started, given that context. And how they changed over time, especially with that data you had. The funny thing about being new to a paper is you dont have a lot of basis for ground rules. People that know me know that is not my strong suit. Generally, what i think i say is not thought about first. We want to be hiring more journalists of color and more people of lgbtq. It is not as easy as it sounds. I know going into this story, the management, a lot of folks have been there for a lot of time. Some were newer editors. The concept of even knowing who Nipsey Hussle was, most of the editors didnt even know who he was. That was the base line. Covering it differently and convincing people that we should do that was difficult. Being a person of color and being younger, i think i can make that argument. The data definitely helps. But it is a culture shift. Again, like a lot of newsrooms, we want to broaden our audience. We want subscribers that are not just the typical upper middleclass, wealthy white subscribers that the la times currently has. La is an extremely diverse city and we need to get more of those people to subscribe. But they are not going to do that unless they feel like what they are reading reflects their community or what they say. Or uses the language they would use and speaks to them that way. I feel like by having diversity in the newsroom, you start to get that a little bit. That is not just diversity in terms of race or ethnicity, but in where people live in the newsroom. One of the big advantages for garrick and angel is that they live in south la. It wasnt just a story about a place and these people. It was literally their neighborhood. I think when you start to have people like that in your newsroom, hopefully with a combination of data people can see in real time that they start to listen and the culture starts to change. At least, i hope thats how it goes. Eric you have been at the la times a little bit longer than erica. Can you tell me how those conversations went for the story and how they have gone in the past . And how you have seen that change, or not . I have been at the paper for 10 years now. I have been the only black reporter for the whole time. I am the only person on the news10. I am one of three black writers and all of the section. I have had to reside in this space, not necessarily because i want to, but because i have to. A lot of my job is explaining these things and why they are important to my job. It is something that early in my career i was resentful of, because i think there were moments where my voice was being suppressed. I felt it was time to go forward other than when they needed me to explain a certain piece of culture. As they hire more people of color, even if they are not always black or always latino, we are still getting more diversity in the newspaper. It has allowed me to take that step back and be a voice now, before i have to be the voice, if that makes sense. When it comes to Something Like nipsey, that can be frank. If i hadnt written that first story, i dont think there would be the interest there was. From a coverage reference, i think somebody had to tell them this was important. I think angel and i had been there the same amount of time. But we still both had to convince editors this was something that matters. We still had to do so much work convincing editors that this was something that matters and is something affecting headlines. Somebody is dead. We know the newsrooms get onto celebrity death. But this is an opportunity to show this was not just a celebrity death. This is something that will hit a little harder. I moved to south la last october. Nipsey was somebody who i spent a lot of time with. I spent a lot of time with them socially. We had dinners together. We shopped together. Just the excitement in the room, that he was finally nominated after all these years. It was also very personal to me. I wasnt really caring about being first, because what mattered to me most was really mattering in all of this. And mattering in the conversation. I wanted to illustrate that it is important. I knew i would have to explain a little bit about rap culture in the piece i was going to rite. And what he meant in the context of what he meant to the city. Because the city this big, a lot of folks will not know who he was. That is the reality of it. Even in his death, a lot of people didnt know. A lot of people got turned on to the things they were learning when they read angels story. They saw what he meant to the community. They all of a sudden heard the stories that were coming out of south la. It was not a story about crime, to be frank. It is still weird that we are still in this space. But that is where we are. We have been this way and how we look at south la for 2530 years. It doesnt change. But what does change is having reporters in the newsroom who understand it. That is what really put us apart from anyplace else you can lift. I looked at all the coverage. Nobody was even close to what we were doing. That is because of the fact that you have somebody like angel who is writing about south la, inglewood, and these pockets of the city where black lives are being really affected by the changes. All of these things coalesced. And then you had me, who is somebody who lives and breathes this culture. I have been at every single event you can think of. They understand i am writing something that is coming from a place where they see he doesnt cover every single rap artist or hiphop artist. Maybe it is something we should consider. Garrick made so many amazing points. I want you to follow up on a couple of them. In particular, this idea of what it means to be a minority in the newsroom. Whether that is a person of color, or an lgbtq person. This idea that you are also being asked to, explain your people. But, then when it comes to shaping the coverage in a meaningful way about issues that affect your people, sometimes you can feel locked out of those conversations. I have been fortunate enough, to be in the largest section of the newspaper. But, for a lot of years i was the only black reporter. We have since hired another black reporter. I am appreciative of that. I keep pushing for more. Erica is my editor. She helped me with the coverage. She allowed me to sit back and do the work as opposed to fighting to tell the story. I was able to get things out what peoples attention was still on this. That helped carry the story longer. That point is crucial. You mentioned that earlier, this idea that because you didnt have to have a fight to prove it was a worthwhile story, you could actually focus on telling the story. I took that energy and wrote mac three stories in five days. That is because i was able to do the work and not have to be making calls and emails saying this is important because. This made all the difference. I have always had supportive editors in metro who have given me the green light to tell everyones story. I didnt think i had to fight. Sometimes it was harder hitting those stories, he cuz at first a younger reporter trying to understand everything and getting it right, so it took a little longer. But things happened faster when i have someone who got it. I could tell what was happening. She could funnel it back to me quickly. We were on the same page. Now, i am able to shoot a topic to her wicker because we have had the conversation before. We are on the same page and she can do a quick edit and the story is shipped off, as opposed to us tried to explain things to each other. That made a ton of difference this go around. Erica, can you talk about some of the lessons you think newsrooms elsewhere around the country can take from the la times experience covering this story to how we can cover communities of color, communities that we live in or dont live in. Or, even cover big events that we sort of have that sense, that there is more to this that i dont know what. To my other point, i think we usually make a big deal about diversity. We always want to hire journalists of color or journalists. What often happens, and i say this as someone who was on the columnist side until really recently. What ends up happening is you hire these people and when something happens, you dont listen to them. Lets say there is a major event that happens. And, it is clear that it is something that affects this particular community. When the commuters reporters or editors say this is what we should do, there is pushback. That defeats the opportunity of diversity. If you dont listen to it, it doesnt show up in your coverage. What is interesting about this particular case is for once i was the middle manager. I was the one hearing the pushback and seeing the reporters struggle and being in a position where i finally understood what the purpose of being an editor was. Which is basically to make sure the coverage actually is reflective of the reality. I think a lesson that can be learned is if we are going to hire people, we should listen to them and guide them and dont tell them they are wrong if they are of that community. One of the things i heard recently is more about particularly the trans community, for example. There is this idea of you dont use their birth name. Why that is important or not. Something who is of the Lgbtq Community tells you you shouldnt do this, you shouldnt pushback. That happens sometimes at the higher level management. It also happens at the copy desk level. And i say this as a former copy editor. That is another challenge in the newsroom is making sure everybody is on the same page. We have a lot of people involved in every single story. Increasingly, because everybody is publishing to the web. You have your print copy desk and things online. You have your lowlevel editors and your web producers. You have reporters and editors. If everybody is not on the same page and doesnt get it, things fall apart and get changed. Headlines get changed. Things become less relevant to people and become problematic and people dont find about until later. There is something that newsrooms can do and that is to get everybody on the same page. To understand our goal is to reach a more diverse audience. To do that we have to actually be relevant to them. We have to be sensitive and understand. Until that happens, we will have a lot of mismatched stuff. That is my general thought. I want to piggyback off of something erica said. It is one thing to hire people of color, but to actually use them in the way that is important is important. If you dont it deflates reporters of color. When you have an editor give you an assignment or come to them with an assignment and they dont value what you bring to the table. Where they go in and tell you that is not the story or the angle. Or spend a little more time on it is a nice way of saying those things you might here in the newsroom. Meanwhile, you know what you have in front of you is good. You know you have done your best and it is a story. There may be other stories that need to be told, but let me get this one out first. Erica has helped me be able to push past that. There are so many times and i have been in that situation. Where there is pushback from editors on what the story actually is. A reporter is less likely to speak up and advocate for themselves. They realize that is not the editor wants, so they dont push. We need to take advantage of the talent that is there and respect they bring to the table. Garrick, can you tell us a little bit about what you learned from this story, and your work in general about bringing new audiences to the la times that others might be able to learn from . Through this process, i learned how to trump my voice. Because of the speed in which i had to turn it around made it a conversation about the piece and what it was going to be. It wasnt a time frame thing. I had been on a bunch of calls. At that point, i was talking to people. No one was in their right mind to have a conversation. I wasnt coming at them from a medical perspective. They werent afraid to talk to me. I decided, i am going to do something that will be more of an appreciation. Once i made the decision and jammed it out, i only had one quick edit. It was one of the few times where there was no full conversation with an editor about where it should go. I was completely on my own to do something. It was strange in a way. Especially, when there is a situation where a critic would be looking at it. The critic is the one who has that depreciation. The fact that i know this person and this music, and i am better fit for it. You are having those kind of conversations on the fly. There was one time where i truly trusted my voice for what i do. I said, i bring this. That is the biggest weapon, to always do this. Erica, do you have any numbers or information about what the actual aftermath was from a business perspective for the la times from this coverage . My understanding is and we are doing some research. Her story is particularly about how he actually died. His brother finding him those stories were the best performing stories on our website all year. Maybe even year before that. As far as traffic and in terms of subscriptions, which most of us know is our new Business Model. On top of that, who actually subscribed are people who normally wouldnt get a subscriber as a reader. For my understanding, or typical subscriber based in santa monica or venice. Increasingly, we got south la and more diverse areas. Inland a little bit as well, like in parts of east la. We reached people we dont normally reach. We got a lot of those people to click and to subscribe. In every Business Model is a win for us. If we can continue to do that, not just with Nipsey Hussle, but with other stories that reach different audiences we will continue to be sustainable as a paper. We will move to audience q a in a moment. If you can start thinking about the questions you might want to ask, we will have some microphones passed around. I want to end with you angel. Talk about pipeline. You talk about being the only writer of color for a long time. Just only black reporter in mitchell. We had asians and other ethnicities. How did you get there . And i understand the la times has a program around this. Yes there is a program that is a train to hire program. When i started it was a Six Month Training Program we spent six weeks bouncing around to different desks. I was in business, in metro doing breaking news and covering education. Afterwards, you get hired on. The program is two years and you spend more time bouncing around and getting more training. They release you and you get to learn the newsroom and community. From their, that is how they color people of higher. For a long time, la times was a destination paper or you needed 10 years of experience. So, they would get people of color with younger voices that could tell stories in different ways. That is how garrick and i were both brought in. I was asked to right some of the hardhitting from page stories. It is a great program. But like many of these programs, it is important to bring in journals of color through the traditional route where you hire at the middle level. Also, to keep these programs where we are actually training them. Not only did i come through metro at Los Angeles Times, but i have been with journalism organizations throughout the year starting as a teenager. I have in the audience, one of my mentors who brought me into journalism when i was 14 or 15. It was through a program at the Washington Post call the young Girls Development project. It became the program that got me here today. You end up creating the next generation. I know there is a crossroads in journalism where we are trying to figure out how to monetize. But we have to think about the communities we serve. It should not be just the traditional communities. The la times has a prescription base that is white and wealthy. One of the data editors recently told me my story did not go well with our subscribers. Again, white and wealthy. But it brought in a whole new subscriber base. It brought in younger people, black people. It skewed more female. These are people who need the news as well. This is a void that has not been filled for a while. We can do that. We can harness at the la times, but other papers should do this as well. I would like to add one thing. To your point about us finding a way to monetize our business, reaching those readers is key to monetizing our business. Our country is becoming younger and more diverse. If we dont figure out how to reach these people and how to get them to subscribe, we will not survive. I feel like it is very much a nexus of those two things. Unfortunately, it took somebody like Nipsey Hussle having to die. But, in a lot of ways it proved it to the la times that this is the direction we need to go. I hope other papers are starting to understand this and do the same thing. All right. We have some microphones. Does anybody have any questions . Remember garrick is on the phone. He has a wealth of information, as well. Dont everybody jump up at once. How about in the back . I am met with the Washington Post. A twopart question. You mentioned you got pushed back from upper management. What specifically were people pushing back against that you wanted to do . And the second part of that, have they learned lessons from how well the coverage did online, and for other crime stories are you applying those lessons Going Forward . Who is it for . You dealt with management. I had to deal with erica which was great. Angel, if you talk about the pushback and garrick as well. And if you want to talk about the different conversations you are hearing as a result of it, erica . In dealing with this story i think he meant in general. It would take a long time to go through exactly what the story was. Oftentimes with enterprise stories, you got a negative news and you are digging deep yourself. And they often, maybe there is a preconceived notion of what the story is. If you give a story that doesnt fit that mold it is sent back. They will let you do the reporting what you know. I tried to to break the notions. Garrick, what kind of pushback have you received in the past on stories you have done that you feel fit into this mold . I think i have been a little more fortunate. I didnt get that much pushback, usually because there is no one else there like me. So there isnt anybody else to look too. Covering primarily black using music is always difficult when you are trying to explain nuances of things. One example of that is last year i worked on a package under r b, which wasnt something i was able to do until i had to do a whole series on hiphop. After 40 years of it being around, everybody in the newsroom is now a fan of hip hop. It is more of a giveandtake thing. We want this, because we have heard about this. Erica, what changes have you seen in the conversations, if any . I think to what angel and garrick are both saying, reporters have a good instinct about the story. Where the pushback aims to come in is more about the editor thinks about the story versus what the reporter thinks of the story. And where the middleground is. The one thing i have seen as a result of this is that when it comes to editors, this has proven that it is easier to define the story. With the data and results have shown is that maybe they had a point. Particularly, with Nipsey Hussle and in other areas, maybe the editors are maybe not as quick to say this is a story or that is a story. I cant say that is true for every single story we do. But in some ways it was a check to say that maybe in some areas of our coverage, maybe some reporters might actually have a point. If anything, this particular story proved that actually was true. Maybe in some cases people are thinking twice. Somebody over here had a question. I am also with the Washington Post. Congratulations first to the la times for having such a strong package for the story. You really had to read it and subscribe if you wanted to read it all. Also to thank the press club for having this event to discuss the coverage. My question is for angel. You had that really compelling interview with the brother. It was a perspective that no other place had. Could you talk a little bit about how you gained the trust of the family and how you were able to navigate that in your storytelling . I have been covering south bailey for seven or eight years now. In that coverage i was in the community constantly. I am not writing the story from my desk. I am in the coffee shop. I am everyplace people are. I am introducing myself. I was a regular resident. He passed away on a sunday. Monday night i wrote the story and then there was a Memorial Service. But, i am still filing the story. I followed it and there were helicopters flying over our homes. Garrick and i were emailing each other back and forth. Asking do you hear that . I let my editor know. She asked if i could go out there and report what was happening. Of course. Yes, i want to go out. It was actually a tragedy that in the Memorial Service someone thought they heard gunfire. There actually was gunfire and there was a stampede. I am out there late at night and i am talking to people. Some are very upset that they were not able to pay their respects. I just sit and talked to people. I connected with the woman who was retreating. She talked about what nipsey meant to her and the community. I thought, you know what . I am going to tell this story. The next day i was reporting the story about Nipsey Hussles roots and how that shaped his life as a rapper as well as a community activist. From their i was put into contextit is a very small, tightknit community. It is spread out all over southern california, but everyone knows everyone. Everyone is talking about nipseys death and how he was a pillar in the community. I asked someone, can you connect me with his family . I know they are grieving, and i dont want to be disrespectful. But, i would love to talk to him. If he is available, can you pass that on to him . They did, because they read my work and my coverage. I got a call from nipseys brother. He actually called me. We talked for several hours. In that time we had a very intimate conversation. I am more friendly with my sources. I am dealing with everyday people. I do not deal with politicians. And i understand they dont understand the boundaries of journalism in the same way. So, i dont want to treat them in that way. So, we have this conversation. He was very open and candid about his brothers final moments. And all of the things that have transpired that day. He was friends with me. He said, i am talking to you like a family member. I told him i respected that. Lets have this conversation. From there i wrote the story and called him back. He told me some pretty intimate details. I asked if he was okay with me sharing that. I am a journalist. He said yes and we went through the details even more. In that moment, i am allowing him to talk as opposed to peppering him with questions. We talked several times after that and he gave more detailed information. I asked pointed questions. They were planning his funeral and in that time they passed along the phone to other people in the family and i spoke with his mother and his grieving girlfriend. I talked to his dad, as well. I have been in contact with them since. I think that is just from my ears of coverage. This story, i had sources i didnt realize i had until i had to make those important calls. Journalism. Any other questions . Here is one upfront. Hello. I am dana james, angels sister. You talk a lot about diversity. I know that is a growing issue within the corporate world. My background was traditionally in public relations. But, what it sounds like is the inclusion part that is missing. Especially, at the la times and other newsrooms. You are hiring the people, but you are not listening to them. You have the diversity part, but not the inclusion part. You talked about how you think it can be better. You think there will be employing networks . Do you think it will be more of them letting you take the leads on stories . I just want to know what you think about increasing the inclusion part. Erica, you have been in a couple different newsrooms. You want to talk about that . I have been in multiple newsrooms. I have sometimes been the only black person. To me, a lot of it has to do with management. I saw statistics years ago about how they had no problem hiring journals of color out of college. That is probably true of more than one industry. But one of the things and reasons people leave is not only because they get pushback on their ideas, but they look in the racks of management and there is nobody that looks like them. They dont feel like they can move forward. And they dont feel like there is a path for them. The key to the inclusion piece is getting diversity into the Management Level ranks. That is a place where we have struggled as an industry. We struggled even more in the last 46 years or more. I think having that Management Level rank helps with the inclusion, because the reporter feels they see somebody that looks like them. They can make an argument for their story. There is more of a conversation. And those stories get told more. Until you get that in the Management Level ranks, it will be tough to get past the diversity to actually be inclusive. One of the things i really like about working at the la times, and it isnt as diverse as it could be, but at least in the current crop of management there is some level of commitment to trying. I recognize and i have been in the industry long enough and i am cynical enough to know that it is not as easy as it seems to hire a bunch of people of color. You have to convince them it is a good place to work. I do think there is an attempt and a Good Spirited effort to do so and hopefully continue to do so. That is nice, because i have been in a lot of newsrooms or that has not been the case. And it is not just seeing people of management but having advocates. Lets be honest, people tend to pull up people like themselves. Or they see a spark in others that remind them of themselves. If we can help others in their careers it brings in the inclusion part. Then you think my voice values and it matters. I will speak up more. If they are speaking up more, they get different assignments. I think it is all tied together. Garrick did you have thoughts . I dont have anything to add. They covered it well. Okay. Any more questions . Hello, i am a retired educator. Nothing in journalism. 73 years old and never heard of Nipsey Hussle until i saw the article. Like she said, i had to subscribe because i wanted to read it. There are other baby boomers who are looking at different aspects, because you have people who look like me and are younger. They are giving me a whole new look at the world. As you begin to deal with your demographic, look at that to see. I would be interested to know everybody coming aboard, and not just babies like you all. I would be interested to see if that is coming through in your demographics this is such an important aspect when we talk about covering these underrepresented communities. They are not monolithic. I struggled to get my mother to listen to marketplace. There are generational and cultural differences. So when we talk about covering the black community, the latino community, the community , your one person who may not be able to cover that. Garrick, you talk about this. How do you have that conversation in the newsroom and make sure that even within trying to cover your own community, you are covering parts of it that you dont know about very well. Yes, i have this idea that when you become the explainer, you actually have to fill in the blanks for every single thing no matter how big or small. They wondered, this is a rapper he got killed. Should we jump on this . I dont even know who this person is. I get that tmz has it, but i dont actually know who this person is. You run into that so much that you are having to spend so much time convincing them that something is important. It is a battle. You want them to take you seriously, when the last thing the remembered is that you talked about the story that they dont know anything about. I feel like i am on a tight rope, especially when we are talking about things other people arent aware of. Others here two years after the fact of cardi b that they near now hear about this. So much of what you do is educating them. That is a challenge i dont know how to navigate. That is ultimately what it becomes. I said it earlier about the giveandtake. You are constantly having to have the backandforth. If you have an editor that is okay doing that, it is great. But when you have one that has a different story, i dont know how to argue with those things. Sometimes a lot of it is going back and forth between things. I would add one thing to that. We should hire more gen xers. I think one of the things that is interesting about the times right now is the age range of managers is a lot younger. Granted, i came from sacramento which is a little bit older. I will put a shout out to my generation. There are a number of gen xers in Management Level. It is interesting because i found we can talk a little bit more to millennial, because we do both. There is a certain level of, i get it even though i dont understand it as much. There is a point of reference where we can tap into each others knowledge. By the way, you dont look 73. I had to mention that. I do think that helps in some cases where you do have people who can understand generations and can translate. To her comment, as i have been writing stories and interviewing people. So many people have been telling me, thank you for telling his story. And q4 interviewing me. It has been an honor talking to you. I am floored by that. Oftentimes it is so hard to get you on the phone to get them to open up personally. In this case, it was the one time when everyone has been so open and available to share their their life story as well as tell nipseys. It is reflected in the coverage. Do you have a question . How are you doing . I am from undefeated. First and foremost, i want to congratulate all of you for the coverage you had during nipseys death and afterwards. It was very powerful stuff i imagine, living in the same city he was from you took it as a deep responsibility to honor him at that moment. My question is about you all. You can go back to the black press when malcolm x was killed. If you talk to the journalists who were responsible for coverage when people like marvin gaye died or other black artists, that took a lot out of them as well because they were attached to those artists. They told the stories they tell in their music. They are both artists in a sense. My question is, especially living in la, how did you manage to take care of yourself while reporting on that . When you are so inundated and you see nancy everywhere, especially you see him on instagram, twitter, and a tv and you are always reminded of him. How did you take care of the process . Can we have garrick take that one . I know they were very close. That is a great question. It makes me think of a colleague of ours. He said i know you take these things kind of hard. A couple days into it, right before the service i had been doing a ton of preparation. I think you dont understand what it is to be on this side of it. A lot of people who are in politics or metro or other places where you might talk often, but there is no relationship it is so much different. So much of what my job is is making the relationships and dropping by studio. It is listening to his music and going on tours. They want that presents. So much of what my daily existence is as a music reporter is being somewhere. And when i first started, i got that was so much of the job. Many people thought it was cool i got to go to all of the shows. But, i go to probably 250300 shows. How often do i sit through that show . It is about 5 . For the most part i am back state talking to people. I get into those relationships. Because that is how i do my business. That is where my stories come from. You get so close to these folks that it becomes blurred. Frankly, this is one of i dont know probably five or six artists who i have been somewhat close to and they have passed away. Nothing was as hard as whitney houston. I was with her two days before she passed. And i am having to ride about it then. It was different than somebody who doesnt spend time with them. I am driving up and down crenshaw and seeing the billboards that are now murals. It was so much about surrounded myself with those people. We had just been doing grammy stuff and coming of the downturn of that. I was sort of catching my breath from having all of the stuff back to back. And then this thing shakes you. In such a powerful way, that i hadnt really prepared myself. I am at Staple Center and i am at this mans service. And people are pestering me. A lot of my friends who are still doing this and are detached in a way, and they are roaming around. I am on the floor, because it was different. That was the first time i actually fully realized he was gone, if that makes sense. It took being in the space where he is in the casket. Before that, i was busy writing the stories and i didnt think about it. But angela and i were really close to each other. The night of the maurielle we were texting each other because we can hear the helicopters and the people and the sirens. We never got to escape any of it. There was a way that by the second or third week after he passed away, he felt so drained by all of it. So, when the editor said lets keep the story going, for me there was no story. I also know the family angel got to know. When you are dealing with family members and people that are grieving, that story for me is a little bit further down the road then it might be for someone else who was more distant from it all. So drawing the boundaries, it sounds like an important part of yourself care and knowing when to say stop. What was it for you angel . I was not sleeping at all after his death. I could not figure out why. It was like energy. I was thinking about it in my sleep. I was waking up and texting her and emailing her at 6 00 in the morning. I wasnt sleeping either, so i was responding. His death is affecting me. That is empathy. You dont realize that. I think on another level, i didnt know him the way garrick did. But my husband spent time with him all the time. His sound trip soundtrack was in the car on any road trip we took. My husband is a black man. Knowing my husband goes out into this world and not knowing in what condition he will come back in, this is nipsey who went to work. He was at his second home. While his death happened under different circumstances, you just dont know what kind of shape your partner is going to come back home in when faced by so many threats. I wanted him to be home and stay home. In that time i knew i had to work, but i took a full two weeks off afterward to get myself together. Then i was ready to go again. I want to piggyback off of something angel said, which was walking out here as a black man, and how it was when we were only a couple blocks away. Being almost retraumatized by the threats on a daily basis. You were seeing it in the neighborhood. I think since michael passed, this is the first time i saw people openly crying in the street. Fairly regularly he would go to the coffee shop and it is all people talked about. You were surrounded by it in a way where it was hard to find those moments of selfcare. And that selfcare didnt happen for a full month, which was getting outside of my phone and life. One of the pieces that struck me that you did after his death was chronicling all of the other people who were killed by gun violence in south la the month of april. And taking that coverage and insight that you all gained in your coverage and amplifying it to tell that larger story. Do you have any closing thoughts before we rap up . I am not of la in the same way angel and garrick are. I hope to stay there for some time, but i dont have the connections they do yet. Nipsey hussle represented somebody who in my previous writings i really care about our black community. And the way housing prices and displacement is happening. I look at this story as a way to use the message and things he talked about so much to train and use the la times to hopefully talk about these things Going Forward. Of course, gain subscribers in the process. To talk about these very important issues that are affecting not just african americans, but people all over the country and particular in la. It is appurtenant and urgent thing. I think part of the reason our coverage connected with so many people is it didnt just talk about nipsey. It talked about these issues and got to the core of white people cared about him. Because he was that person that stayed in his community and wanted to invest in his community. He did the Different Things that other people didnt do when they get wealthy and famous. I would hope other papers will understand that these are the issues we should be connecting with. They are issues that other people care about. That is my whole take away from this. As an editor i want to continue to tell that story, not just of him but also of what is happening in our community in la. Any closing thoughts, angel . I think nipseys death highlighted a divide in la. You have this part of la that knew who he was and knew his work and the issues he was talking about very intimately. And the other side of la, like our subscribers who never heard of him or experienced some of these problems. Who have never been to this part of la, which is sometimes eight miles from their homes. I think his death has been a moment in time that can hopefully make people reevaluate how we cover these communities, as well as think largely about coverage outside of the