Vibe Drops the Ball

I finally got a look at the January issue of Vibe magazine and I'll have to say I was extremely disappointed by their weak response to the Vibe Awards incident involving an assault on Dr. Dre followed by a stabbing. At the time, Vibe President Kenard Gibbs stated that the January issue would address not only the incident but underlying issues within the hip hop community as well. Although the links from that post have expired and none of the articles readily available online include the quotes to which I refer, SOHH did discuss some of what Gibbs promised* in the wake of the incident.

But the January issue, whose cover announces "The Truth Behind The Fight," actually gives only a two page account which could have easily been taken from wire sources, although two people assisted the author with "additional reporting." In the editor's corner, Editor-In-Chief Mimi Valdés does state that she was "heartbroken" and that "we need to say clearly and firmly that violence is unacceptable." So my question is, why don't you?

The brief account of the incident is subtitled, "The news outlets can say what they want about the VIBE Awards fracas, but this is what it was like to be there." Actually the account doesn't give you that either. A far better description of the scene* was given by Lee Baily who raises important details like the fact that the video feed of the auditorium to the press room was cut off during the incident and that publicists did their best to keep reporters from finding out anything of substance.

And what about the underlying issues that are to be addressed? Did you outsource that to Essence, whose Take Back the Music* campaign is addressing issues of women's representation in hip hop art and media? Or were those issues displaced by the much needed five page spread "Tempted To Touch" in which five scantily clad video vixens "show us their goodies"?

Now that's addressing the issues and keeping it real, y'all.

[*dead link removed]