Back on August 25th, we ran a blog post about Roxanne Shanté, a one-time rapper who’d supposedly used an afterthought of a clause in her record contract to force her record company to pay $217,000 for her education, including a PhD in Psychology from Cornell University. Did you notice the word “supposedly” in there?
Yeah, it turns out that The NY Daily News, which originally “reported” the story, didn’t do much in the way of reporting. In short, the whole story is crap. There’s no degree, no practice, no clause in the record contract, nothing.
The reporter who wrote the original story is a free-lancer, and there’s no question he should have done a better job running down the facts before he submitted the story, but the newspaper has a lot of explaining to do as well. After all, they’re supposed to be the professionals, right?
But wait, there’s more. The Slate “journalist” who exposed the problems with this story isn’t actually a journalist either. He’s a lawyer who works for entertainment companies–hardly a disinterested observer. And the bloggers who point this out seem really ready to dismiss his argument because of that.
As for me, I’ve gotten to the point where I really don’t have a clue as to what education Roxanne Shanté has received and who paid for it. None of the players in this story seem particularly trustworthy.
