One Square Mile

USC Journalism Professor Sandy Tolan, author of the The Lemon Tree and producer of dozens of radio productions, is teaming up with Intersections: The South Los Angeles Report and the new online news site, Patch.com.  The course is called “One Square Mile” and it will assign a team of reporters to devote all of its focus on a single square mile of South Los Angeles, Watts, Compton or Inglewood.  A team of students will identify one square mile in the community, and within those confines will tell stories (for TV, radio, print and online) about politics, arts, culture, crime, oral history, migration, hopes, and dreams.  For each team, the square mile in question might have, for example, a 99 cent store, an old cafe, a police precinct, a halfway house, an art gallery, an urban garden, a city hall, a retirement home, a community theatre.  Each team will document the stories within that square mile, in video, audio, print, slideshows, blogs, and social media.

We would very much like your help in suggesting candidates for a square mile where both issues of concern in South Los Angeles, as well as untold stories on politics, culture, the arts, and history could be explored by a team of young journalists for a multi-platform journalistic project.  We want to help students see that stories are everywhere, right in front of us, and that we pass by countless stories every day.  By focusing in on a single square mile, an entire world will come to life.

We want to invite your participation in this class, especially in two areas:
1)  Send us your ideas for a specific square mile within South Los Angeles that the class might focus on.  Please include any details that would help us understand why this square mile would be a good one to focus on.  Also, tell us if you’d be willing to talk to the class about this at some point.

2)  Please also send us any ideas about community leaders, South LA journalists, issues experts and others, who could talk to the class about the issues facing the community, and specific story ideas the reporters might pursue.

If you have suggestions, please email The South L.A. Report at southla[at]usc.edu