US News: September 2004 Archives

My former co-worker Rob Kutner--who just won an Emmy--recently sent out the following backstage report to his family and friends. With his kind permission, I'm reprinting it here.
The Emmys are held every year at the Shrine Auditorium, right in the ultra-glamorous, star-studded region of Los Angeles known as "South Central." The afternoon of the broadcast (it starts at 5pm, West Coast time), the whole area becomes a sea of limos. Reportedly, the demand is so high for them on this particular day, they have to be brought in from not only the rest of California, but from neighboring states as well. At any rate, the surreal spectacle outside your tinted window is of minority residents in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods watching this army of limos insert some of the nation's richest people, one by one, into their armed compound in the 'hood.