Daily Times

Shawn Cotton no longer drives his $55,000, bright pink Corvette to work because he’s afraid it could get him killed like his friend. But there are two things he won’t leave home without: his bulletproof vest and the 9 mm pistol he slips into his pocket.

Cotton, 28, quit his $7-an-hour job cleaning refrigerators at a big-box store six years ago to enter a new and uniquely dangerous field of newsgathering in which video journalists interview street gangs and rappers in high-crime areas, then post the videos on YouTube channels.

Dozens of gangland videographers like him nationwide risk their lives to provide a voice for communities routinely ignored by mainstream media, creating an alternative news genre that Cotton’s friend Zack Stoner liked to call “hood CNN” before he was killed in a drive-by shooting last year in Chicago.

Stoner, known by his nickname ZackTV, was a trailblazer in the genre and considered a mentor by gangland reporters around the country. His still-unsolved slaying exposed an ominous side to their line of reporting, where gun violence is a recurring theme, and showed how vulnerable these newsgatherers are.

Says Cotton about the impact of Stoner’s death: “Now, I think every day about getting shot,”

Only after Stoner was killed did he begin arming himself and seeking to keep a lower profile when gathering content for his Say Cheese channel. That means not driving the car in the conspicuous color into gang territories, lest he make it easier for gangs angered by his reporting to track him.

Other top channels in the genre include Chicago World News, HoodVlogs in Los Angeles and Detroit’s CharlieBo313. When it comes to his channel, Cotton said, his subscribers often dictate where he travels, encouraging him to cover specific gangs or rappers locked in escalating disputes. Reports often show members waving guns and cash, or flashing rival gang signs upside down – a recognized indication of disdain. Critics say the channels glorify gang life and provide a platform – alongside other social media – for gangs to taunt each other, thus stoking violence.

“If you are making gangs look cool, you’re recruiting more people to join gangs,” says Mike Knox, a former Houston gang-unit police officer.

Defenders say the channels fill a neglected news niche, telling important human-interest stories that aren’t a priority for traditional media and telling them from places where those outlets are often afraid to go.

“What Zack provided was a platform where (those on the streets thought), ‘I can be myself, I can cuss, I can tell you how I feel … and it ain’t gonna be censored,'” says Rodney Phillips, an ex-gang member who works for Chicago anti-violence groups. “He was showing the unadulterated truth.”

Stoner had just left a rap concert around 1:30 a.m. May 30 at Chicago’s Refuge club when a car pulled alongside his. A dozen shots rang out. Stoner’s bullet-riddled SUV veered into a lamppost. He had been shot in the head and neck and was pronounced dead three hours later.

Published in Daily Times, March 5^th 2019.