About 7,500 words into her 9,000-word piece for BROOKLYN MAGAZINE on the HEATHCLIFF BERRU sexual assault scandal, CAITLIN WHITE offers this secondhand quote from an unidentified man in the music biz: “When I first read the headline [about the BERRU allegations], I had to stop to think if the story could be about me.” If you need to know how pervasive, and how ingrained, sexual harassment is in the music biz, that terrifying quote should tell you all you need to know. WHITE's piece made headlines for featuring the first interview with BERRU since the scandal broke -- he's in rehab and admits to "wildly appropriate, hurtful, and terrible" behavior but denies raping anyone -- but it's the rest of her reporting that makes it essential reading. In a deep, carefully balanced and remarkably dispassionate piece, she explores what it means to report (or not report) a sexual assault, what it was like to work with and for BERRU, how social media helped and didn't help in the aftermath, why some of BERRU's friends are standing by him and others aren't, and a number of other issues and angles that radiate outward from this specific case to the music business, the media and sexual assault in general... WHITE's story appeared the same day one of BERRU's accusers, journalist REBECCA HAITHCOAT, wrote about the insidiously casual nature of sexual harassment in indie music; less than 24 hours after singer/songwriter LARKIN GRIMM publicly accused SWANS frontman MICHAEL GIRA of rape, and in the shadow of the ongoing legal battle between KESHA and DR. LUKE. You don't have to believe every story -- and these remain, by-and-large, allegations -- to understand there's a very real, and very clear, problem here... It's the same problem that VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN and LADY GAGA highlighted in an emotional moment at last night's OSCARs... Musical shoutouts to ENNIO MORRICONE, SAM SMTH & JIMMY NAPES and ASIF KAPADIA & JAMES GAY-REES for their OSCAR wins. And to the OSCARs themselves for playing out their own politically charged show with PUBLIC ENEMY's "FIGHT THE POWER."