#47 Demystifying Opinion Writing with Erin Aubry Kaplan

About Our Guest:
 Erin Aubry Kaplan is a Los Angeles native who writes about herself, her community, and the city, often all three simultaneously. A longtime journalist and essayist, she won the PEN Center West award for journalism in 2001 for "Blue Like Me," a personal exploration of the link between depression and racial struggle that she wrote for the LA Weekly. In 2005 she became the first black opinion columnist in the history of the Los Angeles Times, and remains a contributing op-ed writer.

Find Erin Aubry Kaplan Online + Selected Works:

-Personal Website
-NY Times Author Page
-KCET Author Page
-Salon Author Page
-KCRW Author Page
-Muck Rack
-Antioch University Faculty Page
-Twitter

Selected Works:
-"Blue Like Me"
-The Butt  Issue 1
-I Heart Obama
-Black Talk, Blue Thoughts, and Walking the Color Line (New England Library Of Black Literature)
-"Cicely Tyson: The Actor Who Redefined Black Characters and Black Beauty"
-"The Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict Reinforces a Long American Tradition: White Animus Against Black Grievance"
-"Simone Biles and the New Black Power of ‘No’"
-Podcast: "Incredible stories are behind bland facades: What this departing LA Times columnist loves about her city"
-"Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of My Black Neighborhood?"

Show Notes
00:03: Guest Introduction
01:24: Erin’s journey to becoming a columnist and writer
06:50: Developing her voice as a writer
10:28: Dealing with bias and criticism as a journalist and woman of color
15:00: Managing vulnerability while writing about personal topics for a public audience
21:11: The origins of Erin’s most recent story about gentrification in Inglewood
25:10: Diversity in newsrooms, being siloed into news beats based on race or ethnicity, and finding one’s niche
33:52: Reflections on the future of journalism
35:21: Wrap-up

Read the transcript for this episode

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