Tbt* News Editor Josh Korr knew he’d likely damage local rapper Black Reign's rep with today’s cover. The snarky headline — “Street Cred? Shot! — humiliated the 24-year-old rhymer who resides and works an office job in Brandon. The St. Petersburg Times-owned tabloid regularly uses such tactics to move papers. But today the free daily went too far by applying a double standard to hardcore rappers like Black Reign that doesn’t exist for other artists in the business of depicting violence. Furthermore, the headline misrepresents the actual story.

The article’s author is St. Pete Times staff reporter Ben Montgomery. He writes and files his stories; an editor crafts the headline. On the Times' version of Montgomery’s article about Black Reign, which ran on the bottom of today's front page, the headline reads: "A sudden reality check," keeping in line with the thrust of the piece. Not so with the headline Tbt* ran on its cover, with a picture that shows Black Reign looking much more threatening than the headshot that ran in the Times. (Both images were lifted from the rapper’s MySpace site.)

“I thought this was a really fine moment of honesty,” Montgomery said in an interview. “I really felt it was a gift from the guy. He was being candid about a real and scary situation that stands in contrast to the things he [raps] about.

"If you look at this story the way it was in the [Times], there's complexity. In a vacuum, it’s a complex story about the reality of violence. It certainly doesn’t make fun of him.”

Black Reign is shown on the cover of Tbt* scowling and pointing menacingly with his left index finger. Under the "Street cred? Shot!" headline, the subhead reads: "Local rapper Black Reign is best known for his song 'Gun Shine State.' On stage recently, he heard a sound for the first time: a gunshot. He ran and hid in the ladies room."

Did Montgomery feel betrayed by the Tbt* headline?

“Not a sense of betrayal, necessarily,” he responded. “In all my reporting, I try to establish a level of trust with the sources. It’s a hard enough thing to do without someone wondering if they’re going to be made fun of.”

Did Montgomery feel the headline was sensationalized?

“I’m not sure that’s the right word,” he said. “I think if anything, the headline wasn’t reported. In my view, it doesn’t fit this story. There’s nothing in there about [Black Reign’s] street cred. It would be different if we would have had fans talking about how this admission affects his career — but that’s not really what this story was about.”

Tbt*’s headline mocks Black Reign for not acting like the characters he depicts in song. He’s ridiculed for being a phony. For being scared — as if in order for him to rap about shooting someone, he had to have actually done it, as if he should have pulled out his gat and returned fire that night several weeks ago in the Brandon nightclub called Fluid. The night a 36-year-old mother was shot and murdered.

I asked Tbt* News Editor Josh Korr, who wrote the headline, if it reflects the essence of Montgomery’s story. “I think it does,” he said, “I didn’t listen to the song [“Gun Shine State.”] I’m not familiar with his canon. I went to his MySpace and the song wasn’t there. But I found something you guys wrote.”

This article appears in Nov 7-13, 2007.