Isabella Rossi (74) - Rossi

and Reese

Isabella Rossi was a local celebrity as a DJ at a Kansas City radio station when in 2023, her 84 year old neighbor Andrew Lester shot a 16 year old African American kid that mistakenly rang Lester’s doorbell. Rossi was shocked. She couldn’t believe this world where guns came out quicker than kindness. As she learned more about the situation that was so close to home, she found out that Lester was an avid watcher of fear mongering news stories, and she knew that this is where the problem started.

“Too many people watch the news and let big media companies tell them how dangerous the world is and who is going to come after them. If you watch these programs, you may think we’re living in a Mad Max movie. But that’s not reality! What happened to critical thinking? How far gone are we as a society that bullets fly before words are exchanged?”

Within a week of the crime at age 54, she quit her job. She needed to do something about the situation, so she dedicated her life to activism. Now at 74, Isabella has accomplished a lot. She’s fought news agencies and held media outlets accountable in court, and even inspired the US “anti-alarmism bill” which she helped push through against the lobbying of big tech and big media. Any negative, alarmist information now needs to be vetted. Algorithms that promote extremist, polarizing content were banned. Social media companies can be fined for real-world impact of fear mongering content that results in real-world threats or crimes.

Most recently, Isabella has teamed up with Reese Witherspoon on the widely popular TikTok series “Rossi and Reese: Silver Lining” (a nod to her own age) that focuses on “positive polarization:” hope, joy, and how things are much better than they look. Isabella hopes she can bring some light into the world of darkness, and maybe, one day, people will react with compassion, not bullets.