Word on the street...

MORE DIVERSITY IN TV ADS

Advertisers say they are incorporating more racial diversity into their T-V spots in an effort to reflect America's multi-cultural identity. Two recent ads exemplify the trend -- a Pepsi commercial with folk-rocker Bob Dylan and hip-hop producer Will-I-Am, and a spot in which E-Trade's talking baby is joined by a black friend. Melanie Shreffler, editor of Marketing to the Emerging Majorities Marketers, says marketers "aren't turning out multi-cultural ads for the good of society. They recognize there is money involved." However, few ads depict bi-racial families or couples.

Phone Topics: What ads have you seen with people of different races hanging out together? Do you hang with people of other races?



NEW YORK POL ANGERS NAACP

Staten Island, New York Community Education Council member Salvatore Ballarino has angered the local chapter of the N-double-A-C-P by E-mailing racist cartoons to dozens of people. In one, John McCain says to Barack Obama that he has blacks in his family tree, then adds, "If I recall, they're still hanging there." Ballarino insists he was commenting on people's racial attitudes. He says, "It was a political cartoon. It was a joke, and I treated it as such."



SORT-OF PATERNITY SUIT AGAINST CHRIS ROCK

Last week, a judge in L-A unsealed a suit against Chris Rock. The suit, filed in August by former model Monika Zsibrita, accuses Rock of breach of contract and various other charges. Rock and Zsibrita had a brief liaison more than a decade ago, and Zsibrita claimed that a child she bore in 1999 was Rock's. D-N-A tests have shown that the child isn't his, but he and Zsibrita settled the paternity case out of court. In asking for the suit to be unsealed, the 36-year-old mother of four says she wants the papers to be public to demonstrate that Rock is a "monster" and that she's not a gold-digger.



TELLING OPRAH'S (UNAUTHORIZED) STORY

Screenwriter John Dixon has announced plans to begin work on an unauthorized bio-pic of Oprah Winfrey. Dixon, who wrote the script for the still-in-the-works Bob Marley and the Wailers bio-pic The Black Beatles, says his Oprah film will be partially fictionalized, but will touch on pivotal events in her life.