Friday, September 15, 2000

News from Crenshaw, Inglewood in the Times Community Newspapers

OUR TIMES CRENSHAW

ED BOYER

Fat lady sings for Our Times

By ED BOYER

Every major metropolitan newspaper in the country wrestles with the same problem: how best to cover the complex regions that make up their circulation areas.

So often there are very good stories down at the neighborhood level that don't involve issues that would make those stories compelling to readers throughout the region.

Still, those stories are often of immense interest to readers who live in those communities.

So the question arises whether a large newspaper like the Los Angeles Times can present local news that finds an audience throughout the incredibly diverse region that it covers while at the same time including stories that are of particular interest to readers in specific geographical areas.

Just over two years ago, the Times launched Our Times sections that ultimately included neighborhood news in 14 specific communities, from Fullerton in Orange County to Santa Monica to Crenshaw to the San Fernando Valley to Ventura County.

I was involved in the Crenshaw edition from conception to launch, and I have written a weekly column for this section since day one back in August 1998.

It has been a rewarding two-year ride, but with this issue, the ride comes to an end. This is the last issue of the Crenshaw Our Times. Publication of the other 13 Our Times sections has also ceased.

We know that this is a section that our readers valued, that they looked forward to seeing each week, and we will certainly miss coming into your homes every Friday.

Thinking back on those two years, I can't help but remember one column when I complained that even though individuals would approach me in restaurants, on the streets and in businesses to tell me what they thought of the section, very few people called or wrote.

After I wrote that column, the letters, e-mails and phone calls began pouring in. If there had ever been a suspicion that we were writing into a vacuum, that response wiped it out.

Readers said they looked forward to the section, that they were learning things about their neighborhoods that they had never known before. Many apologized for not having written before, saying they simply had not thought of doing it -- or they had thought of it but never got around to it.

Some referred to specific columns -- a thumbnail sketch of Maggie Hathaway, a visit to the Boulevard Cafe, a remembrance of Fifth Street Dick, a piece on EsoWon Books.

Central and Southwest Los Angeles and Inglewood are communities seething with issues, and this Our Times section explored so many of them.

Whether it was looking at controversy surrounding the proposed Santa Barbara Plaza redevelopment, racial profiling or the slow pace of repaving on Inglewood's Market Street, the section replaced rumor with information, conjecture with fact.

I especially enjoyed talking to you about linguistics, one of my passions. Columns on the origin of the expressions "homeboy," "rap" and "hip" brought several responses from readers, primarily from those whose recollections of how those terms came into popular usage paralleled my own.

While working with the Crenshaw Our Times, I have also had the absolute pleasure of working with some young journalists (and some veterans) who will definitely find another place in this business.

I remain a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, and much of my work over the past several years has had a direct bearing on issues of concern to residents of what I like to call "Greater Central Los Angeles."

There simply is no substitute for an informed population if we are to have healthy, viable communities. I believe that this section has made a great contribution to providing some of that information. I know that the Los Angeles Sentinel, the L.A. Watts Times and other publications will continue to do so.

And it seems that every time I sign on to the Internet, I discover more sites that are of particular interest to residents of Greater Central Los Angeles. We owe it to ourselves to seek out that information, to be as informed as we possibly can, to be involved, to be committed to building and strengthening the community we share.

I will miss this section. I hope that you will too. It was an important enterprise. But the people whose job it is to add up the numbers finally had to conclude that the numbers simply did not add up.

The fat lady will sing today. The curtain will come down. I have enjoyed every week of our existence. Now it's time to say farewell.

* ED BOYER can be reached at 213-237-4772 or by e-mail at ed.boyer@latimes.com.



Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times



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