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MP Who Raised Red Flag at Abu Ghraib Says It Was Hard Call to Make
Aired August 06, 2004 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A check of the top stories now in the news. "It appears we have a murder on the loose," chilling words from a sheriff after six bodies are found in a central Florida home. No word on how the four men and two women were killed or why.
Putting the pedal to the medal in developing alternative fuels, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry lays out a 10-year, $20 billion energy plan. It includes incentives for more efficient vehicles. Kerry says his plan will make Americans less dependent on foreign oil. More on John Kerry on the road on "INSIDE POLITICS" at 3:30 Eastern.
John Kerry also saying the economy may be making a U-turn. He's trying to capitalize on a new report that shows sluggish job growth last month. Thirty-two thousand jobs were created in July, a fraction of what many analysts expected. Still the unemployment rate fell slightly.
Keeping you informed. CNN, the most trusted name in news.
The MP who raised the red flag at Abu Ghraib says it was a hard call to make. Army Sergeant Joseph Darby testified via long distance today at the hearing to determine whether Private First Class Lynndie England is court-martialed.
CNN's Susan Candiotti has the latest now from Fort Bragg, North Carolina -- Susan.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.
And as she has been all week, Private First Class Lynndie England has been listening closely, appearing embarrassed at times, as the government continues to present its evidence in this prison abuse case. Day four of this investigation investigative hearing punctuated by dramatic testimony from the whistle-blower who broke the abuse scandal wide open and brought it to the world's attention.
Specialist Joseph Darby. He's the one who is testifying by phone from an undisclosed location, the one who turned in his fellow guard, said it was a personal struggle for him to do it. In his words, it was a hard call to half to make to put your friends in prison, and added it was more of a moral problem than anything else.
Now Darby testified that he got three CDs of photos from fellow guard Charles Graner. He's also charged in the case. And he is identified as a ringleader of the mistreatment. The pictures that Graner took, we've all seen time and again now. For example, Lynndie England, holding a detainee by a dog leash, naked prisoners stacked in a human pyramid, and nude detainees lying in a cell block and made to appear, according to testimony, as though they were having sex.
Also we had other new revelations this week, the first time we've had public testimony from intelligence agents that other agents, other military intelligence agents, actually took part in some of that abuse. This is a point the defense attorneys have been making all along, including lawyers for Lynndie England.
However, they suggest there's a double standard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD HERNANDEZ, ENGLAND'S ATTORNEY: None of these men is facing any court-martial or any punishment. Private Lynndie England is facing that punishment. None of the men are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CANDIOTTI: Other testimony this day came from guards who have revealed that because there were so few clothing supplies and other kinds of supplies, that a lot of the detainees, for a few months last fall, had to go naked for that reason. And, in fact, the only clothes they said they had for them, Kyra, women's underwear.
Back to you.
PHILLIPS: All right, Susan Candiotti, details still coming forward. Live from Ft. Bragg.
Well, you feeling down and not sure what's going on? Well, you find the answer by watching the tube. Some people do.
Still to come, television drug ads. Are Americans overdosing on commercials?
Plus, are we alone? Meet one woman who's sitting, waiting and anticipating any signs of life.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Generations could be defined by their advertisements, and these days it may be the egg also known as "Dot" in other ads that show Americans literally had a fix what's ailing them. But show Americans literally had a fix what's ailing them. But is this too much information?
CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They call her "Dot." And Dot has done great things for sales of the antidepressant drug Zoloft.
VAL DIFEBO, GEN. MANAGER, DEUTSCH INC.: What we thought was important here was to have dot communicate to people how Dot was feeling.
COHEN (on camera): And did dot work?
DIFEBO: Dot works. Dot works.
COHEN (voice-over): And the dancing Viagra men work, and the "come hither" woman works, and the cute bellies work. One study from a health care policy thinktank shows every $1 the pharmaceutical industry spends on drug advertising to consumers yields about $4.20 in sales.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Cyalis is here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: The aim, to target you with tried-and-true marketing techniques, like sex and fear, on TV, in magazines, even while you're watching car racing or the poker world series.
DIFEBO: You're going to see them when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night, because we know that's where you are, and we want you to see these ads.
COHEN: Val's Difebo's advertising agency developed the dot campaign and several other pharmaceutical ads.
DIFEBO: I would say drugs have become part of the fabric of our lives. They're a part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, the same way exercise is.
COHEN: But all of this has some people worried that it's created a nation of hypochondriacs, where everyone who sneezes thinks they have allergies, where everyone who had a bad night's sleep asked their doctor for a prescription.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN: Tell your doctor -- tell your doctor? When you tell your doctor, isn't he just a dealer at that point?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROBERT GOODMAN, COLUMBIA UNIV.: It's creating illness where none previously existed.
JOSEPH CALIFANO, FMR. HEALTH SECY.: We're also making a lot of people think that there's a pill for anything -- there's a pill for any problem that they may have. And if you just get your doctor to prescribe it for you, if he won't prescribe it for you, he is the bad guy. COHEN: The pharmaceutical industry says it's helping people.
LORI REILLY, DRUG INDUSTRY SPOKESWOMAN: We know that about 24 million people since 1997 have gotten diagnosed with a condition for the first time as a result of seeing a direct consumer advertising.
COHEN: So either these ads are helping sick people seek treatment...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Would you like to try it? Why, yes, yes, I would.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: Or the ads are convincing healthy people they should take drugs they don't really need.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Think Aspirin and other heart medications alone are enough?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: You decide.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN: An advertising executive tells us that thousands of men have seen ads for impotence drugs like Viagra, gone to see their doctor, and been diagnosed with underlying conditions like heart disease and diabetes -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Elizabeth, you know Bill Maher jokes about patients telling their doctor what to do. So what kind of effect have these ads had on the doctor-patient relationship?
COHEN: Well, doctors tell us that it's kind of flipped the relationship around, that now patients come in and say, hey, doc, I saw an ad for this drug last night. Can you prescribe it for me? And doctors say, you know, these days, we have five or 10 minutes with our patients. It would take 20 minutes or even more to explain why maybe that's not the best drug, and so sometimes it's just easier to hand over the prescription.
PHILLIPS: All right, Elizabeth, by the way, my dad has e-mailed you his prescription of what he's been taking. Will you mind responding to him when you get off this live shot?
COHEN: Oh, absolutely. I'll take a look at my inbox.
PHILLIPS: Thank you very much. There you go, dad.
COHEN: All right, are we alone in the galaxy, or do we have neighbors out there? Our own Miles O'Brien goes on a celestial quest for life.
Coming up, we'll meet some folks who may be on the threshold of a universe next door.
And it started as an alternative music. Now as hip-hop goes mainstream, so are the stars. They're turning up lots of places besides your radio. More on that straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, if you ever wondered whether E.T. really exists? Some scientists will have you believe that he, or someone like he, does indeed live out there in the cosmos. This Sunday, my partner, Miles O'Brien, goes searching for signs of life in the universe, in CNN PRESENTS: IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?"
Here's a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's late at night. Or perhaps by now, early in the morning. The coffee is hot, the champagne on ice, just in case tonight's the night Jill Tarter and her team make contact with an alien civilization.
JILL TARTER: We actually detected two CW signals on that.
O'BRIEN: For Tarter, all the optimistic talk about finding microscopic life, out there somewhere, is just fine, thank you very much.
TARTER: But when people ask the question, are we alone? They're really not talking about, is there some pond scum out there that we can find? They're really asking the question, is there some other intelligent creature out there that looks up at its universe and wonders as we do.
O'BRIEN: Jill Tarter is all about answering that question. For years, she's made pilgrimages here to the world's largest radio telescope in Aerosibo (ph) Puerto Rico, hoping to tune into a signal from an intelligent civilization, WUFO, if you will. This is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI.
TARTER: If you put a transmitter up there, and there is a radar transmitter in that.
O'BRIEN: Jill Tarter is the real-life inspiration for the Jodie Foster character in the movie contact. Remember how they described her?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brilliant. Driven. Major pain in the ass.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Typical over the top Hollywood, right?
TARTER: Oh, no. I mean, I'm stubborn. I'm obsessional a bit. You have to be to continue on with something like this, in spite of the fact that everybody tells you, or many people tell you, that it's a waste of time.
PAUL DAVIES, AUSTRALIAN CTR. FOR ASTROBIOLOGY: It's a glorious, but almost certainly a hopeless quest. It's something we must do, we should do. It's worth spending the money, but it's one hell of a longshot. And I will be astonished if it succeeds.
But the real value of SETI in my opinion, is not are we going to pick up a signal? That would be one hell of a bonus. Because it forces us to think very deeply about what is life? What is intelligence? What is our place in the universe?
FRANK DRAKE, SETI INST.: No doubt, we are the riverboat gamblers of science. We're making the experiment that's a real long shot. But it's one of these things like a longshot in a horse race -- your chances of winning are very small, but if you win, you win really big.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: So be sure to join our space stud, miles, for "CNN PRESENTS: IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?" It's this Sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, 5:00 Pacific. Better watch it. He worked on it for months.
Still to come, you've got to get the goods while the getting is good. Did I say that right? How some hip-hop artists are capitalizing on their fame, while they're still in the limelight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: A story developing out of Hyattsville, Maryland. These pictures coming to us via our affiliate WTTG out of Washington. An armored car guard has been shot here in Hyattsville. Police say it happened around 1:00 p.m. in the 3500 block of Hamilton Street. That's in Hyattsville, Maryland. There's no immediate word on the victim's condition. No other details yet available. All we know is an armored guard -- an armored car guard has been shot. We'll follow up on the story, and bring you more information as we get it.
It's all going down in Miami this weekend. The who's who of the hip-hop world will descend on the city for "Billboard" magazine's fifth annual R&B hip-hop conference and awards.
CNN's J.J. Ramberg reports hip-hop has become a very big business, and it's not just about the music.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
J.J. RAMBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Take a look at the contenders for "Billboard" Magazine's annual awards for hip-hop this week, and you don't just see a group of artists, you also see a group of marketers.
Turns out they're one and the same.
GAIL MITCHELL, "BILLBOARD" MAGAZINE: Seems to be once you've made that transition on the music side, the next step is to parlay that notoriety into some kind of merchandising to further brand your identity as this pop, R&B or hip-hop artist.
RAMBERG: Up for the top awards, there's Beyonce, also the faith (ph) of true stars, the new line of fragrance hitting the stores this fall. Lil John, known as the king of crunk, who's been pitching Crunk the energy drink.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIL JOHN, ENTERTAINER: Yeah! Welcome to Crunk!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAMBERG: And Jay-Z, one of the men behind the popular clothing brand Rocawear, which according to the company, rakes in more than $350 million in annual sales.
Looks like almost every artist on the list has been doing a little moonlighting.
DEXTERLY WIMBERLY, AUGUST BISHOP: Most rappers, and speaking specifically to the hip-hop artists, most rappers realize that, you know know, there's a limited amount of money to be made through a record deal, unless you're a huge, huge, huge success. So while you're popular, you'd better get it while the getting it good.
RAMBERG: Hip-hop artists aren't just pitching products, they're making movies and starring in TV shows.
Some are even becoming activists. Just last month, P. Diddy launched his "get out the vote" program.
WIMBERLY: I think that hip-hop artists are recognizing the power that they have, not just the power to move, you know, CDs in a store or tracks online, but the power to motivate people to do something, and that power can be used to get people to go out and buy, you know, a car that they don't need or can get them to go out and vote, you know, or give blood, donate an organ.
RAMBERG (on camera): Still many artists say it's the music that matters most. While marketing their brands is nice, if the music isn't good, the message may never get across.
J.J. Ramberg, CNN Financial News, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)
PHILLIPS: Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, soaring oil prices. What do they mean for your gas tank and your wallet? We'll explore the possibilities when -- our famous line here -- LIVE FROM's hour of power begins right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired August 6, 2004 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A check of the top stories now in the news. "It appears we have a murder on the loose," chilling words from a sheriff after six bodies are found in a central Florida home. No word on how the four men and two women were killed or why.
Putting the pedal to the medal in developing alternative fuels, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry lays out a 10-year, $20 billion energy plan. It includes incentives for more efficient vehicles. Kerry says his plan will make Americans less dependent on foreign oil. More on John Kerry on the road on "INSIDE POLITICS" at 3:30 Eastern.
John Kerry also saying the economy may be making a U-turn. He's trying to capitalize on a new report that shows sluggish job growth last month. Thirty-two thousand jobs were created in July, a fraction of what many analysts expected. Still the unemployment rate fell slightly.
Keeping you informed. CNN, the most trusted name in news.
The MP who raised the red flag at Abu Ghraib says it was a hard call to make. Army Sergeant Joseph Darby testified via long distance today at the hearing to determine whether Private First Class Lynndie England is court-martialed.
CNN's Susan Candiotti has the latest now from Fort Bragg, North Carolina -- Susan.
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Kyra.
And as she has been all week, Private First Class Lynndie England has been listening closely, appearing embarrassed at times, as the government continues to present its evidence in this prison abuse case. Day four of this investigation investigative hearing punctuated by dramatic testimony from the whistle-blower who broke the abuse scandal wide open and brought it to the world's attention.
Specialist Joseph Darby. He's the one who is testifying by phone from an undisclosed location, the one who turned in his fellow guard, said it was a personal struggle for him to do it. In his words, it was a hard call to half to make to put your friends in prison, and added it was more of a moral problem than anything else.
Now Darby testified that he got three CDs of photos from fellow guard Charles Graner. He's also charged in the case. And he is identified as a ringleader of the mistreatment. The pictures that Graner took, we've all seen time and again now. For example, Lynndie England, holding a detainee by a dog leash, naked prisoners stacked in a human pyramid, and nude detainees lying in a cell block and made to appear, according to testimony, as though they were having sex.
Also we had other new revelations this week, the first time we've had public testimony from intelligence agents that other agents, other military intelligence agents, actually took part in some of that abuse. This is a point the defense attorneys have been making all along, including lawyers for Lynndie England.
However, they suggest there's a double standard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD HERNANDEZ, ENGLAND'S ATTORNEY: None of these men is facing any court-martial or any punishment. Private Lynndie England is facing that punishment. None of the men are.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CANDIOTTI: Other testimony this day came from guards who have revealed that because there were so few clothing supplies and other kinds of supplies, that a lot of the detainees, for a few months last fall, had to go naked for that reason. And, in fact, the only clothes they said they had for them, Kyra, women's underwear.
Back to you.
PHILLIPS: All right, Susan Candiotti, details still coming forward. Live from Ft. Bragg.
Well, you feeling down and not sure what's going on? Well, you find the answer by watching the tube. Some people do.
Still to come, television drug ads. Are Americans overdosing on commercials?
Plus, are we alone? Meet one woman who's sitting, waiting and anticipating any signs of life.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Generations could be defined by their advertisements, and these days it may be the egg also known as "Dot" in other ads that show Americans literally had a fix what's ailing them. But show Americans literally had a fix what's ailing them. But is this too much information?
CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They call her "Dot." And Dot has done great things for sales of the antidepressant drug Zoloft.
VAL DIFEBO, GEN. MANAGER, DEUTSCH INC.: What we thought was important here was to have dot communicate to people how Dot was feeling.
COHEN (on camera): And did dot work?
DIFEBO: Dot works. Dot works.
COHEN (voice-over): And the dancing Viagra men work, and the "come hither" woman works, and the cute bellies work. One study from a health care policy thinktank shows every $1 the pharmaceutical industry spends on drug advertising to consumers yields about $4.20 in sales.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Cyalis is here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: The aim, to target you with tried-and-true marketing techniques, like sex and fear, on TV, in magazines, even while you're watching car racing or the poker world series.
DIFEBO: You're going to see them when you wake up in the morning and when you go to bed at night, because we know that's where you are, and we want you to see these ads.
COHEN: Val's Difebo's advertising agency developed the dot campaign and several other pharmaceutical ads.
DIFEBO: I would say drugs have become part of the fabric of our lives. They're a part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, the same way exercise is.
COHEN: But all of this has some people worried that it's created a nation of hypochondriacs, where everyone who sneezes thinks they have allergies, where everyone who had a bad night's sleep asked their doctor for a prescription.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN: Tell your doctor -- tell your doctor? When you tell your doctor, isn't he just a dealer at that point?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROBERT GOODMAN, COLUMBIA UNIV.: It's creating illness where none previously existed.
JOSEPH CALIFANO, FMR. HEALTH SECY.: We're also making a lot of people think that there's a pill for anything -- there's a pill for any problem that they may have. And if you just get your doctor to prescribe it for you, if he won't prescribe it for you, he is the bad guy. COHEN: The pharmaceutical industry says it's helping people.
LORI REILLY, DRUG INDUSTRY SPOKESWOMAN: We know that about 24 million people since 1997 have gotten diagnosed with a condition for the first time as a result of seeing a direct consumer advertising.
COHEN: So either these ads are helping sick people seek treatment...
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Would you like to try it? Why, yes, yes, I would.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: Or the ads are convincing healthy people they should take drugs they don't really need.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Think Aspirin and other heart medications alone are enough?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: You decide.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN: An advertising executive tells us that thousands of men have seen ads for impotence drugs like Viagra, gone to see their doctor, and been diagnosed with underlying conditions like heart disease and diabetes -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Elizabeth, you know Bill Maher jokes about patients telling their doctor what to do. So what kind of effect have these ads had on the doctor-patient relationship?
COHEN: Well, doctors tell us that it's kind of flipped the relationship around, that now patients come in and say, hey, doc, I saw an ad for this drug last night. Can you prescribe it for me? And doctors say, you know, these days, we have five or 10 minutes with our patients. It would take 20 minutes or even more to explain why maybe that's not the best drug, and so sometimes it's just easier to hand over the prescription.
PHILLIPS: All right, Elizabeth, by the way, my dad has e-mailed you his prescription of what he's been taking. Will you mind responding to him when you get off this live shot?
COHEN: Oh, absolutely. I'll take a look at my inbox.
PHILLIPS: Thank you very much. There you go, dad.
COHEN: All right, are we alone in the galaxy, or do we have neighbors out there? Our own Miles O'Brien goes on a celestial quest for life.
Coming up, we'll meet some folks who may be on the threshold of a universe next door.
And it started as an alternative music. Now as hip-hop goes mainstream, so are the stars. They're turning up lots of places besides your radio. More on that straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, if you ever wondered whether E.T. really exists? Some scientists will have you believe that he, or someone like he, does indeed live out there in the cosmos. This Sunday, my partner, Miles O'Brien, goes searching for signs of life in the universe, in CNN PRESENTS: IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?"
Here's a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's late at night. Or perhaps by now, early in the morning. The coffee is hot, the champagne on ice, just in case tonight's the night Jill Tarter and her team make contact with an alien civilization.
JILL TARTER: We actually detected two CW signals on that.
O'BRIEN: For Tarter, all the optimistic talk about finding microscopic life, out there somewhere, is just fine, thank you very much.
TARTER: But when people ask the question, are we alone? They're really not talking about, is there some pond scum out there that we can find? They're really asking the question, is there some other intelligent creature out there that looks up at its universe and wonders as we do.
O'BRIEN: Jill Tarter is all about answering that question. For years, she's made pilgrimages here to the world's largest radio telescope in Aerosibo (ph) Puerto Rico, hoping to tune into a signal from an intelligent civilization, WUFO, if you will. This is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI.
TARTER: If you put a transmitter up there, and there is a radar transmitter in that.
O'BRIEN: Jill Tarter is the real-life inspiration for the Jodie Foster character in the movie contact. Remember how they described her?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Brilliant. Driven. Major pain in the ass.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'BRIEN: Typical over the top Hollywood, right?
TARTER: Oh, no. I mean, I'm stubborn. I'm obsessional a bit. You have to be to continue on with something like this, in spite of the fact that everybody tells you, or many people tell you, that it's a waste of time.
PAUL DAVIES, AUSTRALIAN CTR. FOR ASTROBIOLOGY: It's a glorious, but almost certainly a hopeless quest. It's something we must do, we should do. It's worth spending the money, but it's one hell of a longshot. And I will be astonished if it succeeds.
But the real value of SETI in my opinion, is not are we going to pick up a signal? That would be one hell of a bonus. Because it forces us to think very deeply about what is life? What is intelligence? What is our place in the universe?
FRANK DRAKE, SETI INST.: No doubt, we are the riverboat gamblers of science. We're making the experiment that's a real long shot. But it's one of these things like a longshot in a horse race -- your chances of winning are very small, but if you win, you win really big.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: So be sure to join our space stud, miles, for "CNN PRESENTS: IS ANYBODY OUT THERE?" It's this Sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern, 5:00 Pacific. Better watch it. He worked on it for months.
Still to come, you've got to get the goods while the getting is good. Did I say that right? How some hip-hop artists are capitalizing on their fame, while they're still in the limelight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: A story developing out of Hyattsville, Maryland. These pictures coming to us via our affiliate WTTG out of Washington. An armored car guard has been shot here in Hyattsville. Police say it happened around 1:00 p.m. in the 3500 block of Hamilton Street. That's in Hyattsville, Maryland. There's no immediate word on the victim's condition. No other details yet available. All we know is an armored guard -- an armored car guard has been shot. We'll follow up on the story, and bring you more information as we get it.
It's all going down in Miami this weekend. The who's who of the hip-hop world will descend on the city for "Billboard" magazine's fifth annual R&B hip-hop conference and awards.
CNN's J.J. Ramberg reports hip-hop has become a very big business, and it's not just about the music.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
J.J. RAMBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Take a look at the contenders for "Billboard" Magazine's annual awards for hip-hop this week, and you don't just see a group of artists, you also see a group of marketers.
Turns out they're one and the same.
GAIL MITCHELL, "BILLBOARD" MAGAZINE: Seems to be once you've made that transition on the music side, the next step is to parlay that notoriety into some kind of merchandising to further brand your identity as this pop, R&B or hip-hop artist.
RAMBERG: Up for the top awards, there's Beyonce, also the faith (ph) of true stars, the new line of fragrance hitting the stores this fall. Lil John, known as the king of crunk, who's been pitching Crunk the energy drink.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LIL JOHN, ENTERTAINER: Yeah! Welcome to Crunk!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAMBERG: And Jay-Z, one of the men behind the popular clothing brand Rocawear, which according to the company, rakes in more than $350 million in annual sales.
Looks like almost every artist on the list has been doing a little moonlighting.
DEXTERLY WIMBERLY, AUGUST BISHOP: Most rappers, and speaking specifically to the hip-hop artists, most rappers realize that, you know know, there's a limited amount of money to be made through a record deal, unless you're a huge, huge, huge success. So while you're popular, you'd better get it while the getting it good.
RAMBERG: Hip-hop artists aren't just pitching products, they're making movies and starring in TV shows.
Some are even becoming activists. Just last month, P. Diddy launched his "get out the vote" program.
WIMBERLY: I think that hip-hop artists are recognizing the power that they have, not just the power to move, you know, CDs in a store or tracks online, but the power to motivate people to do something, and that power can be used to get people to go out and buy, you know, a car that they don't need or can get them to go out and vote, you know, or give blood, donate an organ.
RAMBERG (on camera): Still many artists say it's the music that matters most. While marketing their brands is nice, if the music isn't good, the message may never get across.
J.J. Ramberg, CNN Financial News, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)
PHILLIPS: Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, soaring oil prices. What do they mean for your gas tank and your wallet? We'll explore the possibilities when -- our famous line here -- LIVE FROM's hour of power begins right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
