Hollywood or Bust

My closest brush with Hollywood was when a major US film studio called me up to explore turning a story I was covering into a movie. That was a few years ago and, so far, I have not received any invitations to to the land of palm trees, beaches and beautiful Rollerblade girls.
But today I discovered my second - if somewhat more indirect - link to Los Angeles. Their local, and much respected newspaper, LA Times, covered last week's release of the South African crime statistics. To avoid regurgitating old news, they tried to spice up their report with an interview with our new police chief. The interesting part, however, is that right at the top of their article, they quote a "South African newspaper"... the newspaper I happen to write for. And the quote they pulled out, was none other than the intro I crafted thick in the chaos of the statistics swirling around us in the newsroom. Check out the LA Times article here.