Portraits of LA Wordle This word cloud was created from words and phrases that students from each of the three J518 sections used in their final print and digital journalism projects.
Reporting Assignments
Students from across three J518 course sections covered various "beats" focusing on the diverse landscape of Los Angeles. Course section 1 focused on the County of Los Angeles, while sections 2 and 3 focused specifically on communities in South LA. Students defined South LA using Los Angeles Times' Mapping LA project. "Beats" covered by these Annenberg grad students included: arts & culture, business, community, crime, education, environment, health, homeless & housing, recreation & leisure, religion, science & tech, and transportation.
Section 1: Professor Lih - Thursday 9 am Class
Section 2: Professor Lih - Thursday 3 pm Class
Section 3: Professor Hernandez - Friday 9 am Class
Map SourceWith the guidance of Professors Robert Hernandez and Andrew Lih, 36 graduate journalism students from USC Annenberg sought out diverse and timely stories throughout Los Angeles.
Three sections of graduate students worked on this project, two of which focused specifically on South LA.
Students in J518 studied a variety of tools - digital photography, HTML coding and social media platforms - during the semester, putting together multimedia packages for effective and accurate storytelling.
"I found my experience speaking to formally incarcerated women and their families to be enlightening and moving," Danielle Tarasiuk, a student of Professor Hernandez, said. "These women have powerful stories and I felt very lucky that they trusted me enough to tell their story."
Working in underserved communities and tackling sensitive subject areas can make the job of a student reporter extremely challenging. Kaysie Ellingson, a student in Professor Lih's class, said she definitely fell into that category.
"Covering prescription opiate abuse and addiction was a tough topic to conquer. Simply finding people willing to talk to me felt so impossible at times that I came close to changing topics the week it was due," Ellingson said. "However, as I kept digging into the information and finding statistic after statistic directly concerning Los Angeles, I became extremely invested in my project. I am happy with the way my assignment turned out and look forward to deeply covering another pressing issue in Los Angeles."
Some students found themselves covering areas of Los Angeles frequently underreported in mainstream media. Watts, Inglewood and Leimert Park are neighborhoods not far from USC's neighborhood but are vastly different in terms of race, culture and community. Working in South LA for the full semester enabled these students to become engrained in one of the most racially and economically diverse cities in the United States.
The 2011 US Census found that more than 9.9 million people resided in Los Angeles County, with more than nearly 50 percent Angelenos identifying themselves persons of Hispanic or Latino origin. Within just a few miles, various ethnic enclaves sustain their heritage and traditions in the second largest city in the US. But these different communities also learn from and influence each other.
"I was resistant to the idea of reporting in South LA, partly out of fear," said Matthew Hamilton, a student in Professor Hernandez's class. "But I learned that fear is so tied to ignorance, and that a journalist's work is a powerful took to dispel such ignorance."
