The Source, which was founded in the late 1980s and billed itself as “The Magazine of Hip-Hop Music, Culture & Politics,” was still in its infancy when the police officers who were filmed beating Rodney King after a 1991 traffic stop were not convicted at trial.
James Bernard, then a senior editor at the magazine, got on a plane the following morning and spent the subsequent days and nights reporting on the uprisings, focusing on interviewing locals and emerging with an article very different from much of the mainstream press coverage of the events.
On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how The Source wrote about the Los Angeles uprisings as part of its efforts to cover everything under hip-hop’s umbrella, and the moral and journalistic responsibilities of entertainment-focused media to address the political issues brought up by the art it seeks to cover.
Guests:
James Bernard, former senior editor of The Source
Reginald Dennis, former music editor of The Source
Source: Music - nytimes.com
