Kristal Brent Zook

Kristal Brent Zook, Ph.D. is an award-winning journalist who had dedicated the past 14 years of her life to producing outstanding investigative journalism and original insights on the topics of race, gender, labor, and popular culture in America.

The author of three books and countless magazine, newspaper and online articles, Zook is also the Associate Professor of Journalism at Hofstra Univeristy. Previously, she worked as Associate Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and has been a frequent guest on broadcast and cable news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, TV-One, BET, Fox, NPR, and GreenStone Media.

In her most recent book, I See Black People, scheduled for publication by Nation Books in February 2008, Zook takes on the question she has often been asked by her readers: “Why don’t African Americans own any media?” A collection of engaging and at times, humorous interviews with 10 owners and former owners of radio and television stations and networks, it allows the entrepreneurs to tell their own stories of struggle, success and loss in a casual, personalized way. Zook first wrote about new African American cable ownership for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and excerpts from her interviews with media owners will be seen in the forthcoming documentary News for Sale. She is also author of Black Women's Lives: Stories of Power and Pain.

As a Contributing Writer for Essence magazine since 2003, Zook offers a fresh take on the lives of African American women from all walks of life. By traveling to small towns in remote regions of the country such as Vermont, Mississippi, Florida and North Carolina she has proven herself unsurpassed at digging for the truth, and uncovering real-life stories that are rarely explored in the mainstream media. At the height of the Duke lacrosse rape incident, for example, she entrenched herself with family members of the alleged victim, and by gaining their trust, produced three exclusive, breaking news stories with new information never before reported in the press. For this work, she was widely cited on every major broadcast and cable network.

As the biracial child of an African American mother and a Caucasian father, one of Zook’s greatest strengths is in her point of view, and the fact that she is able to see, based on her experiences and vast knowledge of multiple cultures, from the perspective of one who lives in multiple worlds, as a minority within a minority. In her earliest work as a cultural reporter and television and film essayist for the Village Voice and the LA Weekly, Zook chronicled internal struggles behind the scenes of the first primetime television shows ever to be produced, written, and directed by African Americans. While programming from an earlier era, such as Good Times and The Jeffersons, offered up black actors in front of the camera, Zook foresaw an important trend beginning in the 1980s and 1990s with network executives finally allowing African Americans to have unprecedented decision-making and creative control over their cultural productions. This power led to mixed, but fascinating results, as she shows in her first book, Color by Fox: The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television.

In this collection which became required reading in many university courses, Zook explored the rich and multilayered politics of race and representation in shows such as In Living Color, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Martin, New York Undercover, Living Single, Roc, and South Central. Zook presents her analysis through exclusive interviews with star producers such as Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Charles Dutton, Yvette Lee Bowser, and Sinbad.

Zook has also worked as a contributing writer for The Washington Post’s Arts/Style section, and as a producer and commentator for National Public Radio. As one of the few surviving, completely independent journalists, she brings a trustworthy and autonomous eye to breaking news of the day. Her voice has been heard in a diverse array of publications, spanning from mainstream publications such as The New York Times Magazine and The Boston Globe Magazine to hip hop venues as wide-ranging as Vibe, Honey, the Source, SAVOY and Emerge. Dedicating her life to documenting neglected experiences and untold truths, Zook's reporting and insights are always universally reflective of the society we live in.