Oscar-nominated songwriters Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell sat with Mark Olsen to talk about ‘What Was I Made For?’ from ‘Barbie’ and how they approach writing songs.
Mark E. Potts is the senior editor for video at the Los Angeles Times. A native of Enid, Okla., Potts graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. He has created and edited video for DreamWorks, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony and BET.
Jireh Deng (they/them) was a 2023-24 fellow at the Los Angeles Times. Deng, a queer Asian American writer and filmmaker, was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley. Their freelance reporting and writing have been published in the Guardian, the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, PopSugar, LAist and more. In prior positions, they were a fact-checker at the labor magazine In These Times, managed NPR’s Diverse Sources Database as an intern and worked as an associate producer on CapRadio’s limited podcast series on Asian American identity, “Mid Pacific.” Deng currently co-directs the Asian American Journalists Assn. LGBTQIA+ affinity group.
Matt Brennan is a Los Angeles Times’ deputy editor for entertainment and arts. Born in the Boston area, educated at USC and an adoptive New Orleanian for nearly 10 years, he returned to Los Angeles in 2019 as the newsroom’s television editor. He previously served as TV editor at Paste Magazine, and his writing has also appeared in Indiewire, Slate, Deadspin and numerous other publications.
