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

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. And then people dont find out four hours. Newsrooms need to try to get everyone on the same page and understand that our goal is to reach a more diverse audience. We have to be relevant and sensitive and understand. Until that happens, we will have stuff herky eyjerky stuff. Kimberly i want to touch on what she said. Reporters of color when you have an editor give you an assignment and they do not value what you bring to the table where they go in and tell you that is not the story or the angle. It is a nice way of saying those things you might hear in the newsroom. You know what you have in front of you is good. You know that you have done your best and this is the that this is a story that there are other stories the need to be told but let me get this one out first and i think erica has have to push past that. There are so many times that happens too often where this pushback from editors on what the story actually is and that there are they are less likely to speak up and navigate if they are realizing that is not with the editor wants. You take advantage of the talent that is there and respect what they bring to the table. What youu talk about learned from this story and your work in general about bringing new audiences to the l. A. Times that maybe others might be able to learn from . This was a situation because of this speed of which i had to turn it around, there was then a conversation about what this was going to be. Even we need this by this time. On a bunch of calls but i am atling with people who are the hospital and no one is in the right mind have a conversation. Out from at coming perspective so folks dont have to pull it together. I do somethingen that will be more of an that was one of the few times when there was no full conversation. Completely, i was on my own and that was strange. To be honest especially when there are situations this is something that are critically supposed to you. , i know this music, and benefit for it, youre having those conversations. There was the one time when i ,rusted my voice and when a new the expertise they bring in that is the biggest lesson is to always do that. Do you have any numbers or information about what the aftermath was from a business perspective from all of this coverage . My understanding is, we are doing research into this looking at it. Her story, the one that she wrote about the story about how he died. His brother fighting him. Those stories, they are the best performing stories in our website all year and maybe the year before that. As far as descriptions which most of us know is the Business Model now. We wouldat who not get them as readers. Our bases on the west side of l. A. Santa monica, venice, some of those areas. Andave more diverse areas inland a little bit, east delhi as well. We reached people we dont normally reach. We got a lot of those people to click and subscribe. Which in every Business Model is a win and if we can can need to with stories that rich different i ansys, i hope we can be sustainable. If you can start thinking about the questions you want to ask will have them like that will pass around. I wanted to and with this with you. The talk about pipelines. You talked about being the only writer of color for a long time. Of asian and we have some latino reporters. I was the only lack retort reporter. The l. A. Times has a program. Times has a l. A. Program. It was a sixmonth Trading Program where you spend six weeks bouncing around from different desks. I was in business, metro doing breaking news and metro covering education. That is we can get hired on. It has been more training. Find the newsroom, learn the community. From there that is how they hire people of color. Typically. More like aas destination paper where you would need 10 years of experience. They would get younger voices that can tell stories in different ways. That is how i was brought in. Hardhittingof the stories. Programs are few and far between. It is important to bring in jealous of color through the traditional route where you are hired at the middle level and to keep these programs, we are training them. Not only did i i have been with organizations throughout the year starting from a teenager. On of my mentors brought me when i was 14 or 15. At theas a Program Washington post. With dorothy gilliam. That is why i am here today. You end up creating the next generation. I know that crossroads in journalism where we are trying to figure out how to monetize but we have to think about the communities we serve and it should not be just the traditional ones that already subscribed. Our subscription base is white and wealthy. Well with did not so our subscribers, wedding and wealthy that it brought in a new subscriber base, but younger people, it brought in black people, its skewed more female. These are people who need the news as well. This is a void that has not been filled so we can do that. We can harness this at the l. A. Times but other papers should be reaching out and doing this as well. Finding aint about way to monetize our business, reaching those readers is key to monetizing our business. Our country is becoming younger and more diverse and if we dont figure out how to reach these people and get them to subscribe we are not going to survive. It is a next is of those two things. Took a death but it proved this is the direction we need to go. I hope that other papers are starting to understand this and do the same thing. We have some mics, does anyone have any questions . On the phone. Dont everyone jump up at the same time. I am with the Washington Post. I wonder a two port question, you got pushback from upper management. What specifically were people pushing back against that you wanted to do . Have they learned lessons from how well the coverage did online and for other crime stories, are goingplying those forward . With eric which was great. Lets have you talk about the pushback and if you want to talk about what the different conversations youre hearing, the results of it. I pushback that you had in the past. With other stories i it would take up a long time to go through what the story was. What you have a nugget of news and you are getting deep and they often, maybe there is a preconceived notion of what the story is. Story that does not fit that mold, edison back in hopes that you could get do the reporting. I break those notions. That is some of the pushback i has a have experienced. Youhat kind of pushback have received . Fortunate, in more did not get that much pushback usually because there is no one else there. I dont really run into that. The opposite of that is covering , primarily black music is difficult when you are trying explain nuances of things and one example of that is last year i spent four or five months working on a package of r b. I had to do a series on hiphop. Amateurs are interested after 40 years of it being around. It is more of a giveandtake thing of we want this because we heard about this. The closest example i have. What changes have you seen in the conversations if any . Reporters have a good instinct about the story. Where the pushback seems to come in is more about what the editor thinks versus what the reporter thinks and where that middle ground is. The one thing that i have seen is when it comes to editors on some topics, this is proving that may be angel what angel and garrick said was a story and there may have been pushback. I think the story is this where the data has shown and the results of shown that maybe they had a point. On the with other areas, the editors are not as quick to say this is a story. I can see that is true for every single story but it was a check to say that maybe in some areas of our coverage may be some reporters might have a point. This was if anything, this particular story proved that was true. In some cases may be some people are thinking twice. Also with the Washington Post. Congratulate the l. A. Times for having such a strong package of stories. You had to read it and you had to subscribe if you wanted to read it all. They werehings discussing the coverage. My question is for angel. You had that compelling interview with their brother and it was a perspective that no other space had. Can you talk about how you gain the trust of the family and how you were able to navigate that in your storytelling . Been covering south l. A. For seven or eight years. Coverage i am an community constantly. I am not writing from my desk area and i am in the coffee shop. Everythings just place that i and soveryplace i am, away, mondayed night i wrote a story and then there was a Memorial Service but i was filing the story. I found it filed it in their work helicopters over our home. We were a mailing emailing back and forth, do you hear that . I let my editor no and she said can you go out there and report what is happening . Put this story down and the baby down. I want to go out. It was a tragedy that someone thought they heard gunfire and there actually was gunfire and there was a stampede. Out there late at night and i am talking to people, some people are very upset that they were not able to go and pay their respects and i sit and talk to people still. Onnect with a woman who and she talks about what nipsey meant to her. The next day i was reporting the nipsey hustle and i was put in contact, it is a small command he that is spread out but everyone knows everyone. Everyone has been talking about his death and how he was a pillar in the community and i asked someone, could you connect me with him . I dont want to be disrespectful but i would love to talk to him. Could you pass that on to him . And they did. They had read my work, they knew my coverage. I got a call from his brother. Talked fore and we several hours. In that time he, we had a very intimate conversation. I amreport friendlier with my sources because i am really with every bidet everyday people. Dontrstand the understand the boundaries of journalism in the same wayside a want to treat them in that way. Wasad this conversation, he very open and candid about his brothers final moments and the things that had transpired that day. It was frank with me. I am talking to you like a family member. I respect that. Lets have this conversation. From there i wrote the story and him me you told some intimate details. Are you ok sharing that . It is important for people to hear and we went through the details. I am allowing him to talk as opposed to peppering him with questions. We talked several times after that. He gave me more details. Planning his funeral and in that time they passed along the phone to other people in the family and i spoke with grievingr and his girlfriend and talked to his dad and have been in contact with them since. From my years of coverage this story, i have sources i did not realize i had. I had to make those important calls. Are there questions . I am angels sister. Dana jennings. You guys talk a lot about diversity. I know that the growing issue within the corporate world. My background was traditionally in public relations. The it sounds like is inclusion part that is missing. Maybe other newsrooms. You have the diversity part but you dont have the inclusion part. Can you touch on how the news in general, what you think it would be better. Employee networks, do you think it would be more of them letting you take the lead on different stories, covering different beats. I want to know how you can increase the inclusion part. I have been in malta rule multiple different roles and i have been in no more whereoms than i can count have been the only black person. To me i think a lot of it has to do with management. Where have been the only black person. Years ago as an industry we had no problem hiring journalists of color out of college. We had problems keeping them. That is probally true of more than one industry. One of the people reasons people leave is they look up in the ranks of management and there is no one there that looks like them and they do not feel like they can move forward and they dont feel like there is a pass for them. Getting diversity into the Management Level. That is something where we struggled as an industry and struggled with the layouts we have had in the last five or six years. Having that Management Level helps with the inclusion because the reporter feels like they see someone who looks like them. There is more of a conversation and those stories get told more. Until you get that in the management it will be tough to get a path of diversity to inclusion. One of the things i like about working at the l. A. Times is it is not as diverse it could be. But i do feel like in this crop of management there is some level of commitment to trying. I recognize that, i have been in this industry long enough to know it is not as easy as it seems to hire a bunch of people of color are you you have to convince them, all these various things to work at a place. There is an attempt and a good effort and hopefully they will continue to do so. I have been in a lot of newsrooms were that is not the case. It is not just saying people in management as a passport but having advocates there. People tend to, pull up things like themselves. Something spark of that reminds them of themselves. If they can help in their coverage and career it brings in the inclusion part. My voice is valued at it matters. Effect where if they are speaking up more they are rising in the ranks. I think it is tied in together. Anymore questions . Retired educator. 3 years old never heard of him until i saw the article. I had to subscribe because he wanted to read it. Am not like to think i an anomaly. There are other baby boomers who are looking at different aspects because you have people who look like me who are younger but who are giving me a whole new look at the world. And as you begin to do with your demographics, look at that. I would be interested to know that everybody that is coming aboard are not just babies like you all. I would be interested to see of that is coming through in your demographics. This is such an important aspect. Thank you for sharing that. We talk about covering these underrepresented communities. They are not monolithic. Her to the to get marketplace. Generational differences, cultural differences. We are talking about covering the black community, the latino community, your one person may not be able to cover that. 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 you do not know about very well. [inaudible]ot of when you become the explainer, fill in every single thing the matter how big or small. And this person is a rapper and jumpgot killed, should we on this and i am like, i dont even know who this is. They dont have music on sound cloud or spotify. I get the enthusiasm but i dont know who this person is. You ran into that so much that you have to spend so much time convincing them as much as you have to that something is important. It is a battle. You want to them to take you seriously. The last thing they remember is you turned down the story. I am always on a tightrope especially when it comes to, if the only reason i have it is it is the most popular right now. I dont have the conversations about hot music and r b. They hear two years after the , do you know who this is cover during the the grammys and direct that and you did not see that. So much of what you are doing is convincing them that something is important. That is a challenge that i you will hear me say it is not a story today. That is ultimately what it becomes. I said it earlier about that giveandtake. You constantly have that back and forth and if you have an that, that is is ok doing i think it is a great story. I dont know what to do to that. Sometimes a lot of it is going back and forth between things. More gen xers. The age range of managers is a lot younger. I came from sacramento which was a little bit older. There is a number, a number of gen xers in Management Level. I found that we can talk more to millennials and baby boomers, we do both. There is a certain level of i get it, even if i dont understand it completely as much as this millennial or boomer, there is a point of reference where we can step to one or the other. I think that is one of the solutions you get to you do not look 73. I had to mention that. That does help in some cases do have people who can understand different generations and can translate. A lot to say to her comment that as i have been writing the stories and interviewing people, so many people have been telling me thank you for telling a story, thank you for interviewing me. It has been an honor talking to you. I am floored by that. It is so hard to get people on get them to open a personally and this case, this is a one time where everyone has been so open and so available to share their life story as well as tell his. That is reflected in the coverage. You have a question . I am from the undefeated. I want to congratulate you for the coverage you had during his death and after that. It was very powerful stuff. I imagine living in the same ity that he was from you get is a deep responsibility to honor him and my question is about you, you can go back to the black press when malcolm x and Martin Luther king were assassinated or even in the hiphop walled world. If you talk to the journalists and editors who were responsible for covering it, that took a lot out of them as well. They were very attached to those artists because they told the stories that they tell, they are both artists in the sense. My question is, especially living in l. A. , what have you done, how did you manage to take care of yourself while reporting on that because when youre so inundated, you see him everywhere. Youre always reminded but how did you take care of yourself in the process . Could we have garrick take that one . It is a great question. The first i have been asked it. It makes me think of a colleague of flowers of hours. A colleague of ours. A couple of days into it, i was ofll, had been doing a ton questions. I think you dont understand what it is to be on the side of it. People, a lot of my friends who are in politics where we might talk often but there is no relationship. It is different from this when there is. It is dropping by the studio. It is going backstage and talking to them because they want that presence there. So much of what my daily existence is as a music reporter is being somewhere. And that is how, when i first started, i had so much i no idea that was so much of the job. Must be cool going to these shows. 350 probably 200 250 shows. How much i am sitting through it is 5 . I am backstage talking to people. That is what my where my story ideas come from. To get so close to these folks that it becomes, it is the line is onelurry that, this of five or six artists who i have been somewhat close to and they have passed away. Nothing was as hard as what i thought, whitney houston, i was with her two days before she passed. Iswas different, someone part of the world that i wanted to spend my life and i am reminded of him driving up and down crenshaw and seeing the billboards even before he passed away. There was so much of being surrounded by it, being in those camps and being around those people all the time. We had been doing, coming off of the downturn. Breath fromng my having all this back to breath and then this happened and it shakes you, in effect to. In such a powerful way that i had prepared myself for. I was at staples center. Folks are texting me. A lot of my friends who are still doing this. They are roaming around. I am on the floor, i am with this camp. This is the level of closeness i have. It is different. That was the first time that i fully realized he was gone. It really did take being in a space where he is in the casket. Before that, you have to write the stories and you dont think about it. Memorial wheree texting because we can hear helicopters and we can hear the people, we can hear the sirens. We never got to escape any of it. There was a way that by this second and third week just feeling drained. Lets keep are like, the story going. There is no story. Dealing with family members and dealing with people that are grieving, that story is further down the road. It might be for someone else who of a distance. E trying those boundaries was, it sounds like the important part of your selfcare and just knowing when to say stop. What was it for you . I was not sleeping at all after his death. I could not figure out why. It in mynking about sleep. I was waking up and texting her and emailing her at six in the morning. A source texted me at five in the morning. Are you available to talk . Then a coworker told me, his death is affecting me. That is empathy. You dont realize that. And maybe it is. On another level i did not know him the way that he did. He was the soundtrack on any kind of road trip. My husband is a black man. It hits in a way that knowing that my husband goes out into this world and not knowing what condition he will come back in. Was at the block that was his second home. With his death happened under different circumstances you just dont know what kind of shape your partner will come back home to win the are faced by so many threats. I wanted him to be home, to stay home. Work. Calling ahead at afterwardsweeks off to get myself together. And then i am ready to go again. I want to take you back to something that angel said. The idea of walking out here as iblack man, something that did not mention is what it was like for us when we were only a couple of blocks away and being almost read traumatized by his passing on a daily basis. You are seeing it in the neighborhoods, this is the first time that i saw people openly crying on the street. Fairly regularly, you would go isthe coffee shop and this all people talked about so you. Ere surrounded out by it it was hard to find those moments of selfcare. That did not happen for a full month which was getting outside a week ind taking palm springs. One of the pieces that struck me that you did after his death was chronicling all the other people who were killed by gun in south l. A. In the of april. And taking that coverage and that insight that you gained in your coverage and amplifying it to tell that larger story. Of april. And taking that coverage and do you have any closing thoughts . I am not of l. A. In the same way and i hope to stay there for quite some time but id dont have quite the connections they do. What he represented is something someone who in my previous writing, i really care a lot about black trinity, our community and the way that gentrification and the waydo tht housing prices and the way displacement is happening. Story ast look at the a way to use the message and the things he talked about so much to train and use the l. A. Times to hopefully talk about these things going forward. And gain subscribers in the process but to talk about these important issues that are affecting not just africanamericans but people all over the country particularly in l. A. And it is a pertinent and urgent thing. Part of the reason our coverage acted with so many people as it nipsey, just talk about it got to the core of why people cared out him. He stayed in this committee and wanted to invest and did a lot of things that people do not do when the get wealthy and famous. I would hope that other papers would understand that these are the issues we should be connecting with people about these issues, issues that are important to them and they care about. That is my take away and i want to continue to tell that story, not just of him but also of what is happening in our community and in l. A. Any closing thoughts . I think his death highlights a divide in l. A. You have this part of l. A. That knew who he was, in his work, new the issues he was talking about very intimately and , mostlythis other side subscribers who never heard of him, who never experienced some of these problems, never been to this part of l. A. Which is eight miles from their home. I think that his death is a moment that hopefully makes the paper reevaluate how we cover these communities as well as think about coverage outside of the l. A. Times. Are other news Organizations Holding themselves accountable . Not telling stories just to our readers but in a way that our readers and other people are learning something as well. And the last part cut out. Any quick closing thoughts . I think everything has been said so well. Pretty unrelated, the importance space to have this conversation. I think from the conversations i have been having with angel and to havet is hard for us the conversation not only what his work meant but how it made us look in our newsroom. Ever beenmy team has like, this is great that we have this. Some of this stuff get so lost and i think a lot of it comes to the fact that they might get it is important but not care it is important. It is it does remind me of my , what ison just how next, what does it mean, are we going to change the way we things do things. I am still having the same types of conversations. Writing about cultural things. It is great to have this discussion so i appreciate that. Angel jennings is a reporter for the metro section and erica smith is the metro editor. Thank you and we will turn it back over to julie. [applause] i want to add my thanks garrick gave me the perfect transition by talking about the serving inn or metamode. I was in chicago with a group of journalists as part of the emerging leaders institute. Largely journalists of color but not entirely. We were talking about related , it isand someone said so important we are having these conversations, i amsurg glad we are having these conversations and please also know that your learning is my labor. So i want to thank you guys for the learning and the labor. Angel, erica, garrick again. I want to thank kimberly as well. Our wonderful moderator. I want to thank the institute team. And he who helped develop this program and jim who just started today and jumped in and said how can i help so welcome and thank you. And the press club team who has done such a great job making sure everybody here has a good experience and is feeling welcome and optimal. If you have not been to the press club before please after this find me or fill it who is still here. Can you stand up . He can help you learn more about the press club, he is the executive director of the press club. We thank the club very much. I also in a moment are going to invite everyone to another into a reception upstairs supported by the l. A. Times who we think for making this program what it is. Before i do, i want to talk for a minute about someone who is not in the room. You may have noticed some of us wearing buttons that say free austin tice. He is the only u. S. Journalist held abroad. 2419s been detained for days in syria, almost seven years. He was taken while he was reporting for the Washington Post and mcclatchy. The u. S. Government believes austen is alive and is working hard to bring him home. Austins family has been fighting for his freedom and we stand with them and hope that you will too. If you would like a pin on your way out, there is a bowl of them. You can see austins photography in the lobby. You caned for more that do to help show your support. Thank you again. The to join us upstairs. You should have two free drink tickets to you can drink that thank start that way and you again for supporting the program. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] we will go live to the white house for President Trump in an hour. He is expected to address the issue of Small Businesses in 3 30h Care Coverage for p. M. Eastern. We will take you there were live when it starts. Road to the white house coverage continues tomorrow evening when the virginia democratic already holds its commonwealth gala featuring two hopefuls. Watch live coverage beginning at 7 00 p. M. Eastern here and cspan. Do i look forward to running against them. Tuesday, President Trump holds a rally in orlando, run for aunching his second term. Watch live at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 2 online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. This weekend, American History tv has live today coverage of the annual Gettysburg College Civil War Institute summer conference. Starting saturday at 8 30 a. M. Eastern, with a discussion on the unionist cause with Katie Shively of virginia commonwealth diversity. Termers that nat turners rebellion. The artifacts of the civil war. With atinuous coverage discussion on preserving Gettysburg National military with Jennifer Murray of obama state university. Violence in the civil war from Louisiana State university and a look at the civil war and emancipation in the heart of america with and heirs of the university of richmond followed by a discussion on seeing the conflict through the eyes of panelg historians with a watce