I placed a link to this remarkable Slate story on the What I’m Reading sidebar on this site last week. Now the New York Daily News has finally responded to the evidence uncovered by Slate. The News published this correction on Friday:
AN AUG. 23 Daily News story by a freelance reporter about the hip-hop artist Roxanne Shanté contained several statements that were, or may be, false.
Shanté told the reporter that she earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University, a statement that was confirmed in several publications on Cornell’s Web site. But the university has now informed us that it has no record of Shanté ever attending the school.
In addition, Shanté’s story that her early recording contract with Warner Music contained a clause under which the record company was obligated to pay for her education for life has been called into serious doubt in recent media reports.
Numerous attempts by the freelance reporter to find out about the contract from Warner Brothers Records led nowhere. Warner Music Group now claims it never had a contract with Shanté – only a distribution agreement with her label – and a former lawyer for the label says he is "confident" its contract with Shanté contained no education clause.
Shanté also claimed in the article that a dean at Marymount College helped her force Warner to honor the clause and obtain more than $200,000 in education expenses. But, after refusing to return numerous calls and e-mails during the preparation of the article, Marymount now states that Shanté attended the college for less than one semester.
Thanks, Eugene!
