A letter from the instructor

May 5, 2004

"Making it in L.A." is the final project of six graduate students enrolled in the J556 Multimedia Reporting Course at the USC Annenberg School for Communication’s School of Journalism.

This published final project is representative of a sixteen-week journey through a syllabus and a city and the lessons learned by both students and teachers along the way. In keeping with the mission of professional journalism education, these are not lessons about “what’s cool and what’s hot,” but instead these are lessons about the challenges of deadline reporting, including investigating and the mastery of complex issues; finding subjects; dealing with difference (economic, social and cultural), questioning our assumptions and driving to produce accurate and balanced reporting.

The following provides some transparency to this process, so that "Making it in L.A." can not only shine light on our subject, the good work of our students, but also provide some insight into the challenges of teaching and producing convergent media.

Unlike our print and broadcast brethren, there is no “age-old process,” ready access to technology, or guaranteed level of production skill. New media comes with new challenges. Though we often think of these as production and technological challenges (Flash, PHP, Photoshop, etc.), they are really challenges of leadership, teamwork/collaboration, consensus, time management, diversity, change, experimentation, doggedness and judgment, all critical core lessons for our graduates, who over the next forty years will, no doubt, have to deal with countless changes in the professional practice of journalism.

This course and the lessons our students have learned, we hope, previews, where journalism and journalism education are going, rather than where they have been.

Elizabeth A. Osder
Visiting Professor

Bob Berger
Lecturer