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Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2008 > June > 18 > Entry
Soledad O’Brien at special CNN preview at Alliance
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien was on hand for Monday night’s preview of “Black in America,” a CNN special report. After the invitation-only screening in the Alliance Theatre, guests filed onto the piazza outside the High Museum of Art, where a drum line entertained. O’Brien mingled with guests, who were eager to discuss issues raised by the special report.
Jennifer Brett / AJC
CNN’s Soledad O’Brien (left) visits with Ashlee Feemster after the preview of “Black in America,” a CNN special report. A preview was held Monday at the Alliance Theatre.
“Education isn’t part of the game, it’s the whole ballgame,” O’Brien said during an audience Q&A, noting black students’ graduation rates trail white students’. The gulf is particularly stunning, she said, when examining the graduation of black boys vs. whites.
“I haven’t quite figured out why people aren’t screaming in the streets about it,” she said. “No one’s marching about that.”
The guest list for the event included the Rev. Joseph Lowery, King Center President Isaac Ferris, Atlanta Voice publisher Alexis Scott, Spelman College history professor Jelani Cobb, Dr. Louis Sullivan, former president of Morehouse School of Medicine and Fulton County Magistrate Keisha Lance Bottoms.
CNN was well-represented by a contingent including Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide, and Abbie Boudreau, Elizabeth Cohen, Naamua Delaney, Tony Harris, TJ Holmes, Don Lemon, Betty Nguyen, Rick Sanchez and Fredricka Whitfield.
After a cocktail reception featuring Southern cuisine, guests toured the High’s current exhibit, Road to Freedom.
The collection of 200 photographs by 45 photographers depicts the ugliness and bravery on display side by side in the South during the civil rights movement.
Although the exhibit, and the CNN report, were full of disturbing images, O’Brien did leave the audience with a positive message. Asked what most surprised her during the reporting of “Black in America,” she said, “The number of people interested in changing the status quo.”
BIG APPLE GETS TASTE OF 99X PROGRAMMER
After 18 years in Atlanta, Leslie Fram is taking a bite out of the Big Apple.
The former 99X morning host and program director will become the program director at a new rock station in New York, WRXP-FM (101.9).
“I’m very excited,” she told Buzz Tuesday. “This is another opportunity to build a brand from scratch, like 99X.” Fram, one of the most respected female rock radio programmers in the country, helped form 99X in 1992 and shape it into a new rock powerhouse throughout the 1990s. The station’s influence waned this decade and she was pushed off the FM airwaves in January, along with the station itself, which lives on at 99x.com.
WRXP launched in February and sounds like a blend of Dave FM and Rock 100.5, with plenty of deep cuts and new music mixed in with Led Zeppelin and AC/DC classics. (Ratings have been anemic so far, but Fram said the station hasn’t really started marketing.) Fram won’t be on air in New York but will work her magic behind the scenes.
Fram’s husband, Lanny, will continue to run her two Atlanta area boutiques and she’ll travel back to Atlanta for charity commitments. “I’m going to get myself a cubby hole of an apartment in Manhattan and live at the radio station,” she said.
Will any of her expats at 99X end up at RXP? She’s not sure yet but a few might be available, if not already, soon. Her former 99X colleague Steve Craig, for instance, is doing 99X.com but his contract is up in a few weeks. And former night-time jock Dekker is already there doing weekends.
SEMIFINALIST WANTS TO BE IN PICTURES
Antonio Gilbert, a native of Trinidad now living in Atlanta, is in the hunt for a million-dollar grant in the First Cut Film Series competition. The American InterContinental University grad is a semifinalist in the contest to finance, produce and theatrically release feature films. Gilbert started out as one of more than 4,000 applicants before making it to the top 250, then top 15 with his sci-fi action film “Area 52.” Track his progress at www.firstcutfilmseries.com.
CELEBRITY BIRTHDAYS
Musician Paul McCartney is 66. Movie critic Roger Ebert is 66. Actress Constance McCashin (“Knots Landing”) is 61. Actress Linda Thorson (“The Avengers”) is 61. Actress Isabella Rossellini is 56. Actress Carol Kane is 56. Singer Alison Moyet is 47.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I have always known [that marriage is] not something for me. Even when I was a little girl I never dreamed of the white dress and all of that.”
Charlize Theron, who presumably won’t be a June bride this year, in an interview in Glamour magazine
Contributing: Rodney Ho and news services
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