Incoming first-year graduate journalism student reporters spent Wednesday busing, walking and "tweeting" around various sections of Los Angeles — from Skid Row to the La Brea Tar Pits to Watts (Watts Towers pictured above) — as part of an orientation assignment at USC Annenberg.
Groups of about 10 students split up into eight groups to get a feel for the city and become familiar with using the social networking Web site Twitter as a reporting tool. They tweeted about what they saw and how they enjoyed the experience during a six-hour period of time. Their first assignment is to write an online news story due Sunday.
"I hope our students got a sense of the vibrancy and rich diversity of Los Angeles," School of Journalism Director Geneva Overholser said. "Even for long-time Angelenos, this great city offers an unparalleled range of experiences."
Elizabeth Geli (M.A. Specialized Journalism '10, Twitter: @elizgeli), who sent out 12 tweets from the La Brea Tar Pits, said she is a huge believer in the power of Twitter and enjoyed being able to share her experiences with her future classmates.
"When I returned from the tour Geneva Overholser already knew about my experience and discussed with me a specific quote that I had tweeted," Geli said. "That is a kind of amazing communication that would never have happened without Twitter. It connects people in new and positive ways."
Said Overholser: "It was thrilling to see the tweets, full of interesting and engaging observations. All of us in the Journalism School office were exclaiming to one another, laughing and shouting with delight: 'Did you see this video? Did you see that twitpic?' I’m so grateful to our colleagues who put these terrific experiences together."
"We exposed grad students to some of the top issues and personalities in Los Angeles," said journalism professor Alan Mittelstaedt, who led his group around Los Angeles and Hollywood during a tour of the LA transit system. "Like the rest of us, they came back amazed in most cases and shocked in others."
LeTania Kirkland (M.A. Print Journalism '11 @letaniakirkland) said she always wanted to know more about Homeboy Industries, and this was her opportunity to find out more about it from its director, Father Gregory Boyle.
"It was a great experience," Kirkland said. "Father Boyle had lots of interesting things to say in regards to gang intervention and what works and what helps. He's interested in helping former gang members find jobs and get their lives back on track."
"The last couple of days have been spent listening to lectures at orientation," Sinha-Roy said. "All of us students are in the same boat. We got to know each other, but also did our own reporting. We all enjoyed ourselves, and got out of our comfort zones. We were initially nervous about exploring an unknown area, but within a half hour we were settled and comfortable."
She also said she was surprised by the easy usability of the buses in Los Angeles.
"It is no different from London's buses," she said. "I was stunned by the preconceptions everyone has about Los Angeles public transportation."
Jason Ma (M.A. Specialized Journalism '10), who was part of Mittelstaedt's group touring public transportation, also was surprised about the aesthetics of the public transportation system.
"It was good to get off campus and into the city," Ma said. "The subway trains were comparable to the ones I've seen in Washington D.C. and other places."
Evan Pondel (M.A. Specialized Journalism '10 @epondel), who explored the Watts area, said he had never been to the area even though he grew up in Los Angeles.
"You always hear about Watts as being a dangerous place with lots of gang activity," said Pondel, who is still wary about diving into the world of Twitter. "It was such a pleasant day. It was hard to imagine any gang activity there. It was such a contradiction to the way it's portrayed in movies."
He also said he is inspired to go back and learn more and report on what he sees.
"I now have a sense of the geography and will feel comfortable going there," he said. "The trip showed us as reporters how much interesting material there is. It's an area ripe with stories."
Janine Rayford (M.A. Print Journalism '11 @JanineRayford) shared Pondel's uneasiness about Twitter and excitement for learning more about Watts.
"People from the community were speaking so positively about their neighborhoods," Rayford said. "These people live there and are the real experts on their area. I loved learning from them. The worst part, though, was seeing a massive hospital (Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital) closed down and just taking up space. The area has challenges to deal with that many don't know about."
Heather Hope (M.A. Broadcast Journalism '11 @HOPE4Heather) took a tour of LA Live, which she said she would never have been able to do with friends or family. She got a behind-the-scenes look at places such as the Grammy Museum, Staples Center and Nokia Theatre.
"We took the DASH to downtown," said Hope, explaining that it only cost 25 cents to ride and was a fast trip to the heart of the city. "I didn't even know what that was until today. The whole experience throughout the day was great because it opened up new places for future story ideas."
She also said it helped ease her concerns about using Twitter.
"Before I didn't want to let everyone know what I was doing," she said. "It's great to use when referring to a story. I was apprehensive before, but will update a lot more now."
Skid Row in downtown is a place most people in Los Angeles have never wanted to visit, but Specialized Journalism student Lauren Whaley (@laurenwhaley) said she was thrilled to explore the area.
"I was hoping to visit Watts," said Whaley, who explained that the students learned the area they would visit by random numbering earlier in the day. "Skid Row was my second choice, and I'm very grateful for the chance to go and dispel the myth that this is a scary place. It's not somewhere I would have ever gone to explore on my own, so it was extra gratifying."
Whaley and her group, led by journalism professor Marc Cooper, talked to former journalist and current Lamp Community director of public policy Anat Rubin about issues affecting people who are homeless.
"Her thesis was that if you provide people with housing, other issues can start to be worked on like mental health issues and drug use," Whaley said.
All of the students interviewed, including those such as Hillel Aron — (M.A. Online Journalism '11 @hillelaron) who grew up two blocks away from the Little Ethiopia he visited — said they saw new places and learned new things.
"It was good to see some of the students who lived in LA their whole lives see new parts of the city," Cooper said. "It helps confirm our rationale for doing this. USC students are like everyone else in that most people live in their self-enclosed world. This helped them see new things and think about new stories."
Shotgun Spratling (M.A. Print Journalism '11 @BlueWorkhorse), who toured downtown with journalism professor Sandy Tolan, said one of the most interesting encounters of the day occurred on the 10-minute bus ride downtown.
"I didn't come into the day with any expectations," Spratling said. "It turned out awesome getting points of view and stories from different people. I enjoyed the whole day because each speaker was passionate about the history of Union Station, Chinatown, Koreatown, everywhere."
He is a long-time user of Twitter and other online tools, but he said the School's focus on new media is something he has really enjoyed.
"We are a part of the change that is taking place in journalism," he said. "The School is embracing the change, rather than say, 'This is the way it has always been done.'"
Sample tweets from the tour:
- @JanineRayford: Today I saw a national park made of cement, met the mother of humanity face to face and tripped over chains on a slave ship
- @PiyaSRoy: Just had a great chat with guys from under the skin tattoo parlour on pico.
- @Treblalbert: After going thru a slave ship replica,the question is posed to us:why are so many blacks still enslaved in our penitentiaries today?
- @elizgeli: the backstage tour at La Brea was very cool. SO many bones! Heading back to SC on the bus soon!
- @stephrguzman: Lunch group discusses gentrification and "white flight" occuring throughout LA communities. Think Silverlake, echo park, and DT la
- @olgakhazan: Rice left on one important question re: LA gangs- "What do you do about the ones who arent ready to change?"
- @IanJoulain: Getting the grand tour of Watts. Just told that this area was called Mud Town in the 60's
Read more about the School of Journalism's activites by going to Twitter.com and searching "#ascgj09." Photos from this article were taken during the tour by journalism professor Andrew Lih (Tolan with students in front of bus), Online Journalism M.A. student Kim Nowacki (@knowacki, photo of "Helping Hands" thrift store), and Online Journalism M.A. student Stephanie Guzman (@stephrguzman, men playing a checkers-like game in Chinatown and students interviewing police officers).
