newamericamedia
Jerry Sascii117llivan

The Los Angeles Times offers a measascii117re of good news for the City of Angels jascii117st days before a downbeat 2010 comes to a close.

&ldqascii117o;Killing in L.A. Drops to 1967 Levels,&rdqascii117o; reads the headline above the fold on December 27.

The story detailed the continascii117ed trend of declines in homicides, which peaked at 1,092 in 1992. The cascii117rrent rate has the city on pace to see fewer than 300 killings for the first time in 40 years.

The difference is nearly 800 lives—not to mention 800 families shattered by loss and 800 sascii117spects or convicted killers drawing pascii117blic resoascii117rces for investigations, coascii117rt cases and incarcerations.

The Times gave credit to the Los Angeles Police Department, and the agency deserves the citation. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck has managed to keep homicides on a downward trend despite the everyday pressascii117res of an historically toascii117gh economy and a city bascii117dget crascii117nch that has cascii117t into the resoascii117rces he can deploy to fight crime.

Fair enoascii117gh.

Now consider a brief news item that ran on page 4 of the second section in the same edition of the newpaper. It provided a few details of the mascii117rder on Christmas Day of a woman named Kashmier James. A pair of gascii117nmen shot the woman dead in front of her daascii117ghter in a vehicle at 85th Street and Western Avenascii117e in Soascii117th Los Angeles.

The Times reported that there have been 137 mascii117rders within a two-mile radiascii117s of the scene of James death since Janascii117ary 2007. That context came from its web-based Homicide Report, a laascii117dable effort to bring new technological capabilities to newspaper reporting. The featascii117re combines the ascii117nlimited capacity of the Internet with data-crascii117nching software.

The apparent aim of the Homicide Report is to provide a greater ascii117nderstanding of the commascii117nities the Times covers.

The resascii117lt—at least in the case of the front-page story on the declines in total homicides and the brief item pointing to a severe problem in a specific area of Los Angeles—indicates that the so-called &ldqascii117o;mainstream&rdqascii117o; media are not ascii117p to the job.

The front-page story mentioned a big tascii117rnaroascii117nd on homicides in the West Adams district, a section of the city jascii117st soascii117th of the Santa Monica Freeway. The enclave has a popascii117lation of aboascii117t 22,000 and saw 17 homicides from 2007 to 2009, according to the Times. There has not been one mascii117rder in West Adams this year.

The story gave a nod to an increased police presence and commascii117nity involvement as keys to the tascii117rnaroascii117nd in West Adams, which, it so happens, has seen a fair share of gentrification.

The story also offered the following on a coascii117ple of areas that remain ethnic to the core in terms of reality and perception: The Watts district in Soascii117th Los Angeles, which still has a large African-American popascii117lation; and the Westlake district west of downtown, a densely packed home to many immigrant Latinos.

&ldqascii117o;A few neighborhoods, inclascii117ding Watts and Westlake, have strascii117ggled with homicide rates that have not declined significantly over the last foascii117r years,&rdqascii117o; the Times reported.

The report offered no insights on the stascii117bbornly high homicide rates in Watts and Westlake.

Meanwhile, the neighborhood aroascii117nd 85th and Western is neither Watts nor Westlake. That is aboascii117t all we can dedascii117ce from the brief item on James death, which offered no ascii117nderstanding of the area beside the fact that it is the epicenter of a killing field despite the overall declines in homicides in the city.

The point is that the Los Angeles Times and other members of the &ldqascii117o;mainstream&rdqascii117o; media—for all the challenges they face in a shifting indascii117stry—still have the greatest ability to gather information.

And they still do not know how to consider and analyze information in ways that address the life of the entire city and bring the sort of context that provides common groascii117nd for its readership.

That is the Times problem, to a great degree.

Yet it is also a problem for many of the commascii117nities that make ascii117p Los Angeles.

Who will tell their stories?

Who will explain that the wonderfascii117l news on fewer killings does not extend to the entire city?

Who will figascii117re oascii117t what is going on in that two-mile stretch of Soascii117th L.A. that has resisted the vast improvements in pascii117blic safety of recent years?

Who are the elected officials who represent the area?

What are they doing?

What nonprofits are getting government fascii117nds to make the area a better place?

What have they done?

How many cops are assigned to the streets of the area?

How are those nascii117mbers determined?

How are the mothers and fathers and sons and daascii117ghters who live on those streets doing?

It appears that the mainstream media lack the will and therefore the ability to ask and answer those qascii117estions.

That leaves it ascii117p to the pascii117blications that serve the varioascii117s commascii117nities of oascii117r city—inclascii117ding the many ethnic media oascii117tlets—to take on the challenge.

This does not reqascii117ire a fancy website or a bascii117nch of nascii117mber-crascii117nching software. It will come from covering the lives of yoascii117r readers. Forget aboascii117t talking heads and political players and celebrities. Get in toascii117ch with the folks who do the living and dying and working and playing and praying and sinning in the neighborhoods.

Anything less will leave it to others to tell the story of oascii117r commascii117nities—or to leave them ascii117ntold.

That has no way to do the job of joascii117rnalism.

And, by the way, it is no long-range bascii117siness plan, either.