Transcripts For CSPAN National Press Club Discussion On Cove

And watches as a flight is torn down and the union one hoisted in its place. Sunday night at 8 00. Up next, reporters from the Los Angeles Times join the National Press club to talk coverage of rapper Nipsey Hussles death. They talk to discuss the negative image of los angeles. Over one hour. Welcome, everybody. I like how you instantly got silent. Welcome on behalf of of the National Press club and press journalism institute. So happy you are joining us in this room and on the span. I am the executive director of the National Press Club Institute where we are working to close the gap. Gram andn Important Service program and service. April, a woman was given an honor at the Free Expression awards. Honor, shepted her talked about Nipsey Hussle and dedicated it to him and talked about the l. A. Times and their coverage. Want to show you what she said. Tonight i want to dedicate this award to someone who was and is important and who used his art in dynamic ways. He is a rap artist, entrepreneurial activist from the part of the country i am from. His name is Nipsey Hussle. He told the truth through his art. The truth of his family and his feeling and his community and his city, his world and his actions and ideas and love for his people. It echoed throughout the world. His life viewed as triumph that it is and was and will long be. This week, i have been motivated and deep by the press coverage from South Central los angeles, specifically an area in South Central l. A. Has galvanized a press asponse that has become telltale moment for me and so many people who so rarely see that kind of attention given to people like him. The Los Angeles Times, city newspaper and a firm page a page spread, they wrote a. Gend in his city it profiled the totality of the talent and attention with great insight, understanding, and sensitivity. It, the when i saw layout and the way they honored him on the page. It was another journalist of the New York Times who tweeted that the layout and the love shown by the l. A. Times was such a profound example of why it is so critical to hire journalists who are of the cultures they are writing about as often as possible and the depth of knowledge and intuitive gravitas is so important, air did eric justice. That is really powerful. I was talking to a colleague and a friend about our mission and she had been at the museum. I was telling her how Central Trust and representation was what we were trying to accomplish. And she said, find out how the l. A. Times did it. Wilbur who is a member of the National Press club word of governors and connected us to the right people at the l. A. Times. They were eager to talk about how this coverage came about and what led up moment and what has followed it. Adams, who kimberly is also a member of the National Press club board of members and she will introduce our l. A. Times team and we will go from there. Thank you, kimberly. thank you for coming out this incredibly important topic. Toany of you have the chance go back and look at the Amazing Stories the l. A. Times did, i think that would be of great and if it to you in this really astounding coverage. I will introduce our wonderful panel. Here is angel. The metroeporter for section of the Los Angeles Times. She covers issues that affect residents in south los angeles. She has written the business section and covered education. She is a native of washington, d. C. Pause for applause. She graduated from the university of nebraska. Next we have erica smith, an assistant metro editor for the Los Angeles Times. [applause] kimberly she previously worked at the Sacramento Bee where she covered housing, homelessness, and social justice issues. Before that she wrote for the an award star and is recipient for writing. She is in ohio resident and native of cleveland. That is not all, because on the ,hone we have Garrick Kennedy can we hear you . Hello. A Staff Writers for the Los Angeles Times covering music and pop culture. On the front lines at music awards and has covered the biggest players, including mariah carey, drake, jennifer lopez, diana ross, kendra mark, and the weekend. Of thenamed journalist year by the association of black journalists. The advocat featured him in its annual 40 under 40 list. He is the author of parental discretion is advised. Thanks. [applause] kimberly many of you already know Nipsey Hussle was, but some of you may not have the full was andof the person he why his death struck so hard. The best way to give you a snapshot of that is to read some of garricks coverage from the l. A. Times. This is a condensed version of a piece he wrote. Here is the thing to understand about him and why his death devastating not only to those of us who live and breathe hiphop but also reside in his birth lace of south l. A. Place of south l. A. He was driven by a desire to reinvest in the streets that raised him. He became an entrepreneur, activist, and mentor as he transformed into a rap star. Death in front of these the stripmall he was redeveloping seems cruel. Theever shied away from looks and stumbles that came with growing up in the 90s and south l. A. Hero for usingal the same fortune he got from ping and put it back into the community. He opened a shop the second he could afford it. He had big dreams for his hood and it is not tragic and unfair that he was shot down during the community that raised him. Start with garrick and ask you to tell us more about who Nipsey Hussle was to the community. He is important to the community. It is something that we are still fully understanding because there are so many stories that have yet to be told about his in his influence. Dreams have been in fruition over decades. He was nominated for a grammy couple months before he was killed for his last album. People who were aware and who followed him him, knew him. To speak todecision most people. That i know the value of this work and if you want it you will pay for it. People will and someone who did was jayz. People started to understand and get serious about how he was approaching his career from a business per spec. Perspective. Either others even though others knew how to turn it into savvy business plans, he was redeveloping the streets he came from and never left. That is what made him different from everyone else. Kimberly can you tell us how you ended up on the story and what prepared you to cover the story . I cover the people and all of the problems they face in the , andems of south l. A. People know some at know it as self drove l. A. I got to live in the community and cover it. You can see the influence throughout the streets. He had shirts that were sold out of his store that took the name of a street that mightve had a negative connotation outside of the neighborhood but he harnessed that. You although shirts all over. You saw those shirt all over. I drove past the store every day and then his death happened. Sunday and ion a was with my emily and i was told that he passed away and can you put in a few call with my family and i was told that he passed away and can you make a few calls . This is something that needed to be told from the ground. I got to work the next day and said let me tell the story of his life and legacy. We were talking about what he was doing with this stripmall and it was facing gentrification. He was just trying to bring back stores and amenities and keep black people in the neighborhood. I said let me tell that story, and i got to work. Kimberly can you tell me about the genesis of the coverage and how it came in and how people initially wanted to cover it and how it changed over time . I have only been at the l. A. Times since december. I got into the story because i happened to be in the night editor shift. He was literally shot 20 minutes before i got to work. I spent the evening bringing in the fields from the reporters we had out there talking to people and monitoring social media. It was clear from looking at ane of the data that we had seeing and looking at social traffic that it was moving from a crime story to a community story. That night, looking at the data, that story had more traffic between 4 00 p. M. And midnight than the entire internet had all day. Oft was an early indication how big the story was going to be. Dontnew to l. A. , i presume to know everything about it but i remember not sleeping and then talking to angel the next day. We usually have the morning editor meaning and we talk about stories we are going to do and how we are going to cover it. After talking and looking at twitter, it was clear that it was going to be a community story. The timeline from the editors is we wanted to cover it like crime story. We had to do that story but angel wanted to do a different story. I thought it was a good idea based on my got and what i read had. T and what i the interesting thing is that now we have data to back up the gut feelings about things. You can see how much better her story did, not just locally but nationally and internationally versus the crime story we did. That was a clue for us on how we would continue to cover the story. s input, we did great coverage. My role was trying to convince everybody it was a good idea. The first story i was writing about the community and , ittalizing the stripmall wasnt until the next day that it was buried inside the story and did not make homepage all day which baffled me. Andas all about the crime then small letters about him trying to redevelop the area. There was another story and i kept questioning why . That was a concern to me because i wanted to tell the community stories. He was for the people and the promise and i wanted to make sure we highlighted that versus the fact that his death was murder which was salacious. There was also a man here and a father and someone who cared about his community. Kimberly thats pause and talk about what is overriding all of this. Many newsrooms across the country is majority white and does not have that many people of color in the newsrooms. About how those conversations started given that context and how they changed over time, especially with the data you had . About being thing new between newspaper as you dont have ground rules. Those who know me know that tact is not my strong suit. For me, i know that diversity is one of those things that most newsrooms want to be better tomorrow. We want to hire more people of color and lgbt but it is not as easy as it sounds. Going into the story, i think the management, a lot have been there for a long time. The concept of knowing who Nipsey Hussle was. I dont think most new who he was. Differentlyring it and convincing people we should do that is tougher. Being a person of color and being younger i could make the argument better. The data definitely helps. It is a culture shift. We got toewsrooms, broaden our audience and have subscribers who are not wealthy, white subscribers. L. A. Is an extremely diverse city and we need to get more of those folks around the county and the city and region to subscribe and they are not going to do that unless they feel like what we are reading flex their community and what they say reflects their community. By having diversity in the newsroom, you start to get at that. One of the big advantages for garrick and angel as they live in south l. A. It wasnt about a story and place and people but it was neighborhood. E when you start to have people like that in your newsroom, hopefully with the combination of data, people will start to listen and maybe the culture starts to change and i hope that is how it goes. Garrick, you have been there longer but can you tell me how the 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. The entire time i have been the only black reporter on the music team. I am one of three black writers and all of the entertainment section. I have had to reside in this space, not necessarily because i would want to but because i have to, which a lot of my job is explaining these things and why they are important. It is something that early in my career i was resistant to because i think there were moments where my voice was being suppressed until it was time for calm and explain this gay thing or this black thing to people. It has been a shift where they have had to start hiring people of color, even if they are not always black or latino, we are still getting more diversity. It has been allowing me to take that step and see an opportunity to be a voice before i have to be the voice, if that makes any sense. I dontes to think there wouldve been the interest that there was. They did need someone to tell them that this is important. Angel and i had been there the same amount of time but we still have to do so much work convincing editors that this is weething that matters and know that the newsrooms and celebrity death is always going to move the needle. I do think this is about the affinity to show that this is not just a celebrity death but it means more and hit harder. I moved to south l. A. Last october, but i spent a lot of time with him. We had dinners together. The excitement in the room that he was finally nominated after all of these years. This was also very personal to me. Care about being first but what i matter but what really mattered to me in this is that i wanted to illustrate what this actually means. It does mean taking a step back to say that i know i have to explain some of the culture in the piece but explain what he meant in the context of where he was and what he meant to the city. A lot of folks will not know who he was and that is the reality of it. In his death, a lot of people. Idnt know they were seeing what he meant to the community and hear the stories, south l. A. , a place where they are going to know about if there isnt a story about crime. We have been this way in how we look at south l. A. For 25 to 30 years. It does not change. What does change is having reporters in newsrooms who understand it. That is what put us apart from anyplace else. I looked at the coverage and no one was close to what we were doing. That was the fact that you had angel writing about l. A. And about the pockets of the city where black lives were being affected by gentrification. And then you had me, who i live and breathe hiphop. I have been in this world for a decade. I have been at everything you can think of. They understand that if i am coming something, it is from a place that this is a consideration that we should be considering. Kimberly he made so many points. Be idea of what it means to minority in the newsroom, whether a person of color or lgbtq person the idea that youre often being asked to explain your people then when it comes to shaping the coverage in a meaningful way about issues that affect your people, sometimes you can feel blocked out of those conversations. I am in metro which is the largest section of the paper for years i was the only black reporter. We hired another one and i keep pushing for more. Editor helps me with the coverage and allows me to sit back and do the work and i was able to get things out while attention was still on this, which helped carry the story longer. The point is crucial. The idea that because you did not have to have the fight to prove that it was a worthwhile story, you could focus on telling the story. Energy and it wrote three stories in five days. Able to do the work and not cap be not have to be making phone calls to say it was important and that made all the difference. Ive had editors in metro that have given me a green light to tell everyones story. Sometimes it was harder getting the stories but first trying to be a young reporter and understand everything may have taken a little bit longer, but it happened faster when i got someone who understood. We were on the same page. Now i am able to shoot a copy to her much quicker because we had the conversation. She can do a quick edit and the shoring story gets shipped off instead of us explaining things to each other. That made a ton of difference. You talk erica, can about the lessons that newsrooms elsewhere around the country can take from the l. A. Times experience covering the story to how we can cover communities of color, communities that we live in and we dont live in or even cover big events that we had the sense that there is more to this that and i dont know what. Erica i think that users make a big deal about verse city and we all want to hire journalists of color. What often happens, and i say this as someone who was on the reporting or column aside until recently, what ends up happening is you hire people and when something happens you dont listen to them. So they say there is a major event that happens and it is clear that it affects the particular community. When the editors say this is what we think we should do, there is pushback. It defeats the entire purpose of having verse city. If you dont take advantage of it, it doesnt show up in your coverage. What was interesting about this case was that for once i was the middle manager. I was the one hearing the pushback and i was seeing the reporter struggle and be in the position where i finally understood what was the purpose of being an editor, which is to make sure the coverage is reflect the of the reality. I think the 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. One of the things i heard recently is more about the trans community. Of not using idea the name they were assigned at birth and why that is important or not important. If somebody in the Lgbtq Community tells you you shouldnt do this for reason, you shouldnt push back and say i think i am right. Theink that happens at higher level and also at the copy level. That is another challenge making sure everyone is on the same page. We have a lot of people involved in a story and everybody is publishing to the web and you have the print copy and you also have online and middle lever level editors and reporters. If everyone is not on the same page, then things fall apart and get changed in the story at 10 30 at night and the end up in print. Headlines get changed. Relevant toe less people and become problematic