The best stories are sometimes right down the street. The University of Southern California (USC) is located in the center of historic downtown Los Angeles. USC's neighbors include world-renowned museums, sports venues and entertainment destinations. Directly surrounding USC, however, is a neighbor with its own rich culture, but one not written about in the university's brochures or visited often by USC's student population.
A lower-income area with a reputation of gangs, drugs and violence, it is an area that gets bypassed, not just by students at USC, but also by the mainstream media. Generally underreported, when stories are published about the area, too often they focus not on the promise, but the problems in the community.
Southside Stories is a semester-long challenge posed to students in six "Intro to Online Journalism" (#ASCJ309) classes at USC. Taught by Professor Robert Hernandez, Professor Sarah Wright-Killinger, Professor David Medzerian and Professor Victoria Fine, ASCJ309 assigns students out into the neighborhood to spotlight stories that capture the sights, sounds and heart of the community in their backyard.
The course itself is also an experiment in pushing the boundaries of storytelling. Instead of using a reporter's notebook and pen, the class explores different mediums of storytelling. Students use voice recorders, cameras, even their phones to create new media story packages.
Students in the course spent the first part of the semester getting to know the community and learning a range of multimedia tools and HTML coding to aid in their reporting. The second half was spent covering a specific beat in the community that interested them.
"There's so much more you can do with digital than you can when you're limited to print," said Greg Ascuitto, a student in Professor Hernandez's class. Ascuitto focused his semester on spotlighting the faces of the homeless in the community. He said that having the freedom to use a range of multimedia tools helped him create stories with a greater impact.
"You can read all you want about the dangers of substance abuse, how it affects people's lives, but until you see a 3-month pregnant African American women who is less than 100 pounds, once you hear her voice, hear the pain in it, it's a completely different element. Seeing her stomach, pregnant, her face, sunken into her skin, conveys her story on a whole different level," Ascuitto said.
Throughout the semester the course allowed students to experiment with HTML code and different "webby" tools, like supplementing a text story with a Prezi, Vuvox or Storify.
"I liked the feeling of building something from scratch. I felt like I really had creative control over my final," said Hannah Madans, a student in Professor Medzerian's class. "I'm a very visual person, I love slideshows, I will click on anything that has one. So it was nice to incorporate things like that into my project." Madans said.
Madans, who focused on local business said that the semester helped her get to know her own neighborhood in a new way.
"A lot of people assume the people living in these houses are all USC students, but I learned that was not really the case. There are community members here and it was interesting to hear their thoughts on the construction [at the University Village]," Madans said.
The semester was not without its challenges. As outsiders coming into the community, one of the biggest challenges was finding ways to establish trust with people in the community.
"It was a struggle finding people that would talk to us, sometimes. We were really strangers in this neighborhood. One day, I went to a park by the Vermont Square library. There were these kids playing tennis and I wanted to ask them about it. None of the adults wanted to talk to me though, probably because they didn't really know my intentions. I feel like they're skeptical to trust anyone because they are so used to being portrayed negatively that they didn't trust me coming out to tell positive stories about the community," said Alexis Driggs, a student in Professor Hernandez's class.
Driggs said that she learned how important it was to take the time to build relationships with her sources.
"When you do get the interview you have to keep their trust. [For my final project] they trusted me tell a good story and showcase how they're making changes for the better. I think it's just trying to make it as clear as possible that that's what you want to do," Driggs said.
Creating Southside Stories has been a challenging but rewarding experience for all of us in ASCJ309. Working in this community for a semester, we've met people who have inspired and enriched our lives. We hope that through this website, their stories will entertain, inform and touch you as well.
We'd like to extend a huge thank you to everyone in the community who made this project possible.
Although the semester is over, we would still love to hear from you. If you have any comments or feedback, please tweet us at #ASCJ309.
All the best,
The Students of Introduction to Online Journalism Fall 2012