I'm Roberta Glass, and you're listening to My True Crime Report. My guest today, Mark Ebner, is a journalist and author currently residing in Los Angeles. A graduate of Bard College, Ebner has bravely been covering taboo topics for decades, from infiltrating Scientology to investigating Bill Cosby's rape accusations in 2007.

Ebner's stories often reveal the kind of uncomfortable truth that get him in hot water,

and with a passage of time, I told you so, ragging rights.

Welcome, Mark Ebner.

You were one of the first people to break the story of Bill Cosby's

serial raping and drugging of women in 2007. That story didn't really take hold until Hannibal

Beres referenced it in his stand-up. What makes the difference between a story that's broken and largely ignored

in a story that gets embedded in the public's consciousness?

I think that with Cosby, we kind of have to touch on elements of race and culture and celebrity

to really understand what happened there.

But actually, it was 2006 when I actually couldn't get any traction.

I had three live on the record witnesses, yet nobody would even bite.

Jump forward all the way to Hannibal Beres.

And yes, there was some reporting.

There was Philadelphia magazine.

A couple other more regional outlets were on it.

I honestly believe that Bill Cosby was really hiding under the cover of his own celebrity.

It's very simple, because if

it takes Hannibal Veras, you know, to get people to pay attention, including the media,

then we have a serious problem. You know, I was reaching out, I was trying to get the story out there,

and nobody was biting, including wire services, which surprised me at the time.

Now, why did Hannibal tip the scale? I honestly don't want a stereotype, but on the race issue,

...