West Long Beach

I spoke with economics professor Kristen Monaco about issues regarding port drayage workers. The meeting was filmed and I will work on editing it this weekend. I'll be editing other footage from the rest of my group members as well. We also had a stroke of luck today as we were able to find video footage we previously thought had been lost.

Our group website is also under development and I'll be brainstorming the layout with my group on Tuesday. This weekend I'll also begin work on the interactive map for the website.

We also plan to go visit West Long Beach again to get more civilian interviews.

I have been working on three stories for the last three weeks. I got myself into this pickle by starting a new one every time I hit a roadblock, now it looks like I may be able to finish all three of them.

the first piece is about BNSF railway and their proposed SCIG yard. although this is out of our jurisdiction I've already done quite a bit of work on it and would at least like to finish a text piece about it. I've interviewed the media representative for the company, and John Cross the president of the WLB Neighborhood association, and I have plans to interview the head of the labor union that BNSF has contracted the construction task to.

The second piece is the one I've had most luck with as far as cooperation.

I've set up an interview with  local artist Doug Kurtz, who works with autistic children and paints murals for the city of Long Beach. He is currently dedicated to a project he is very passionate about, building a home for autistic children that focuses on art-therapy and art-education. He swears by the power that different forms of expression have to break through to some children in the treatment of autism. I plan to connect this story to the city by interviewing him, one of his kids, and a member of city government that can speak to the issue. this will likely  be my video piece.

The last piece is in my opinion the most important piece I've been working on, but also the one with which I've had the most problems. There is an initiative on the city government minutes that seeks to create a universal language access policy for different departments in city government. The proposal by council members Andrews and Neal was passed, and several non-profits were charged with drafting proposed changes in policy, and a strategy to implement this access. However, the draft of proposed changes has not returned yet, and as such, many people in city government are unwilling to talk to me about the item, as they feel I am trying to affect the council's decision. I also am in the process of setting up a Spanish interview with a woman who says that for her association, the language barrier is the main obstacle to creating the kind of change she and her peers are pushing for. I am positioned to cover this story from both sides, but for lack of cooperation, nothing has happened with it yet.

I've contacted the press person for the city, as well as forwarded an email through a neighborhood resource center in the hopes that the people at the city-level will consent soon to letting me interview employees at the neighborhood resource center 2 blocks from my house, and councilman Dee Andrews who was one of the authors of the proposal.

West Long Beach update # 4

I did further research into Professor Kristen Monaco's work with the ports and pollution. Put together interview questions and will be meeting with her Monday to discuss the disparity between Port of Long Beach truck drivers wages and living conditions and the work they do. I also will be discussing how this disparity effects their work and effects the local community. This interview will add to the groups video as well as the print story I've been working on.

North long beach update, week of 4/26

Our project covering north long beach is covering progressing very well. We are focusing on the two different areas of north long beach. North long beach consists of both district 8 and 9. District 8 contains all of the Bixby knolls area along with some surrounding area. The councilman here is Rae Gabelich. I will be hearing back from her office on Monday in regards to how I can interview her. I will either interview her over the phone or I will have our group meet with her and record the interview. Either way, I will be encompassing this interview into a multimedia element of our project covering this part of north long beach. We also obtained several interviews from buisnesses in the Bixby Knolls area, speaking about what makes the area so unique and different. These interviews, along with the pictures we took, will be essential to the multimedia elements our group will use to cover this area of north long beach. The other part of north long beach is district 9. This area is further north between south street and greenleaf. This area is lower income compared to the Bixby Knolls community. This is the area I will be covering with our groups audio sideshow. This is the area that they came to speak to us about in class. It is sevearly lacking multiples restaurants, buisnesses and markets. Many people here go to neighboring Lakewood or Compton to do their shopping. Councilman Neal emailed our group answers describing the main issues facing his district, and what needs to be done to fix these essential issues. We will be going back into the field this week to focus on the exact points Councilman Neal mentioned to me in his email. With this information I will interview buisnesses in the area and residents, in order to make an audio sideshow covering district 9. Written by: Joshua Saylor

Post #4: Downtown Long Beach

Since the downtown food and wine tasting event was cancelled due to rain, we decided to attend the LBPD South Division Community Leadership Forum. At the meeting, Sofia and I listened to Commander John Benedetti talk about crime statistics, crime trends, safety tips, and how crime is being addressed in the area. There was also an undercover policeman that spoke about graffiti. We were able to get some pictures and voice recordings at this event for our audio slideshow. Zinaida plans on putting the slideshow together this week. Other that that, we are still looking into an interview with someone from the Long Beach Board of Directors regarding the election of a new member and an angle on the residential trends downtown.

4th UPDATE

This week I took the audio interviews of my story and set them to print to see what direction I want to take with the story and I will take pictures to add to create an audio visual this week.  I wasn't able to do much due to a busy week.

Nayeli Carrillo

Central Long Beach Update

So after a rocky start my group and I have thought of news ideas to cover. This Friday Bree, Brittany, Sylver and myself went in hopes to visit the homeless shelter on Anaheim and Pacific. Unfortunately we were unable to have a tour, but we were able to set up a time on Tuesday to go back. We will be given a tour and hopefully we will be able to get an interview with one of their long time residents. We were given a packet full of lots of information about the shelter as well as volunteer information. We also are planning on getting involved ourselves with feeding the homeless. We want to talk to many people as possible and see how these shelters have benefited them. So hopefully everything works out for the best.

4th update

This week I focused on helping Cosette make the interactive part of our group project. I went through the list of bike friendly businesses that participate in bike friendly Saturdays on second street and went by and noted which ones have bike racks. I also spent some time getting the VoiceOver, music and photos together for the final cut of the video.

Central Long Beach--Bree Cahey

On Friday, Sylver, Brittany, and Lenai and myself visited a homeless shelter on Anaheim and Pacific Avenue.  The lady in the office was unable to give us a tour, so we set up an appointment to meet with her this Tuesday to get a tour of the facility, as well as hopefully interview one of their long-term residents.  In the meantime, she gave us a very informative packet with information about the facility as well as volunteer information.  We are also going to visit a homeless shelter within our neighborhood and feed the homeless.  We plan to talk to some of the people there and see how these programs have helped them, etc..and generate a print story for our multimedia package.  We are also still working on posting the 90 to 120 second video, as we can't get footage until Tuesday when we get a tour of the homeless shelter.

Downtown Long Beach Update, Week of 4/23

Last night, Shannon and I attended a community meeting at the LBPD. We found out a lot about decreases/increases in crime rates in the South Division (which is the downtown area), efforts to stop graffiti and how the officers are trying to curb robberies, auto theft, drug smuggling from the Port, etc. We learned that overall the South Division crime rates have decreased when compared to the same area 10-20 years ago. The meeting was Commander Benedetti's last one, as he is retiring and passing his duties on to someone new. We found out interesting information we can use for our text article and audio slideshow.

-Sofia Yassine

4th Update - Second Street

This week I have been working on the interactive map for Second Street.  This map is to go with the story about "Bike Friendly Saturdays." Certain shops and restaurants participate, offering discounts to customers who ride their bikes to 2nd street.  The map will be of 2nd street and have pins indicating businesses that offer discounts for Bike Friendly Saturdays.  The reader can scroll over any of these pins to find out the business name, location, phone number and the discount offered.  The interactivity is being created with Adobe Flash.

Downtown Long Beach Update

This week, our group will be attending a public forum for the Long Beach Police Department.  Weather conditions forced us to alter our original plan of going to several downtown Long Beach restaurants as part of our slideshow.  We hope to take photos for our slideshows at the forums and gain insight to trends and changes in crime to keep with our theme of "How Downtown Long Beach has changed over the years."  In addition, once we have gained information from forum, I will be going out and taking pictures to compliment the topics mentioned in the forum to add to the slideshow.

Live Music On 4th Street

For my portion of the group project, I will be creating an audio podcast of the local music scene on 4th Street Retro Row. The record store, Fingerprints, has weekly performances that are free to the public, as long as they RSVP by calling the store in advance. I visited the store last Wednesday, and saw a live band, called the Allah-Ahs. The Portfolio Coffeehouse also has weekly live music, but with more acoustic style of music, along with jazz. Last Friday CSULB jazz guitarist William Brahm performed and he does every second Friday of the month.  The Pike Bar and Grill also has weekly free live music. For most of the week, they have a DJ, but at least once every two weeks there is a live performance. This audio podcast will kind of mimic a radio show, but is meant to put awareness to the public that there is free live entertainment up and down 4th Street Retro Row.

4th blog update: Downtown Long Beach

Today, three of our group members will go to the Long Beach Police Department's leadership forum for the pacific division. The images gathered will be used for the audio slideshow part of the presentation. The forum will include crime statistics in Long Beach as well as citizens affected by crime. This was a last minute resort since the event "Taste of Long Beach" was postponed due to weather conditions.

Downtown LB #4 Melissa Bell

This week we will attend a meeting held by LBPD. Here they will update the public on the crime situation of long beach. Shannon will be bringing her camera to take pictures so we can put them together in a slide show. I hope this allows us to feature an awesome slide show for our presentation.

http://www.longbeach.gov/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=12389

thought this would be very useful to some groups who may not have found it yet.

    Our group has re-focused and generated some new story ideas
     First of all, I will be following up on an interview I did with John Cross, President of the West Long Beach Neighborhood association, regarding the train companies BNSF and Union Pacific. Mr. cross left me under the impression that it is not actually the ports but the railroad companies that are presenting the most opposition to clean-air and noise-reduction initiatives.
     Also I checked in with a local neighborhood resource center about the services they offer and possible story ideas stemming from their work with the community.
     The last idea i generated today was a small color story about the renovation of a local landmark.
     For as long as I've lived in downtown, on the corner of 4th and Lime Street there has been an old boarded up building with a painting of a bald eagle on it's side, a giant flagpole, and a sign dubbing itself, "The Pole." A developer named John Schultz has now begun to remodel the old place, and I'm curious as to it's history.

Central Long Beach - Brittany Hays

Instead of further pursuing the Cabrillo High School story on air pollution we have decided to focus on the homeless in the community of Central Long Beach. We are planning on going to a homless shelter on thursday to get information about the services they provide and hopefully get to speak with individuals at the shelter. We have also gotten in contact with a member from a neighborhood association who was more than happy to get us in contact with people in the association and someone who was once homeless and now has housing. We plan to focus our story/stories on an individual or individuals who have gotten help through these services and provide information about the services themselves.

West Long Beach

Update # 2
My group and I visited Hudson park, which is located in West Long Beach and looked for both parents and children who are effected by air pollution. This park is located directly across from a rail yard, one that is proposing expansion. We asked those at the park if they knew about the proposal and some who have children who attend Hudson elementary, had no idea and became concerned. We shot video, took photos an also collected audio from these sources. We also visited the ports and drove down the freeways surrounding this area, in order to shoot more video and take photos.

Update # 3

I'm currently working on writing the written piece which will encompass all aspects of the ports effects on West Long Beach. Mark Lemus and I will also be meeting with Professor Monaco on Monday, she's done extensive research on the living conditions and wages of truck drivers. This is a group who is directly effected by the ports on an economic level.

Sylver at central long beach

I had originally scheduled an interview with one of the harbor comissioners at the Long Beach port until it just so happened that it would be a bit irrelevent to interview this person since the port isn't exactly in our jurisdiction of central Long Beach.

I felt a bit uneasy and at a loss, but I am currently working on scheduling a few interviews with a homeless shelter and working towards the angle of the story. I don't know what that is exactly but I have a few ideas in regards to homeless children and family shelters.

Update on West Long Beach

Today I will be meeting with John Cross, President of the West Long Beach Association, to discuss the impact of the ports on the West Long Beach Community. He will be taking me on a short tour of West Long Beach and show me impacted areas of interest.

After this interview, I will be able to put together a photo slide of interviews with policy makers who are looking to alleviate the impact of the ports on the community. It will be a series of photos of meetings and the community with community leader interviews in the background.

North Long Beach

After covering some community events, we made a meeting with the councilman. Were hoping he will be able to help us with a few more story ideas. We want to do a story on some of the local businesses as well. Hopefully after we get some more information from the councilman we will have a few leads on some stories and be able to incorporate some multimedia somehow.

update on Central Long Beach

Well this past Friday Sylver and I had plans to go interview reporting on the ports of Long Beach; however, the interview was later canceled. Unfortunately there was some miscommunication about the exact boundaries of our group and now we will be widening our topics that we report on. Currently I am little blocked on what topics to cover. I do not want to repeat the same mistake and cover something not related to our area. So any ideas that you have will be much appreciated. Until then I will talk to my group see where they are at and try to find my own story.

3rd Week UPDATE

This week I went out to The Assistance League Thrift Shop on 4th Street to talk to Patricia who is the Store Manager for my story about stores on Retro Row whose profits go back to the community.  Thursday I went to the Feed Store to talk to Michelle who is the weekly store manager about the story as well. I was able to snag an interview with the President of The Assistance League Cynthia Summers and the Director of Development on Friday.  In between the week I also went with the group to ask a bike shop on 4th Street about their involvement with bike friendly saturdays. We also interviewed an employee at Frosted about how bike riding has affected her and genuinely helped her to make a lifestyle in Long Beach. We shot pictures as well during the bike shop interview and we shot video of those two interviews on 2nd Street.

3rd blog update : 2nd. & 4th

Very busy week! Contacted the belmont shore business association on Wednesday and spoke with Dede, but she admitted she didn't know much about bike-friendly Saturdays. On Thursday, I went to the two interviews I set up on 2nd. street. The first interview was with a manager of Jones Bicycle shop who surprisingly told me that he thinks the city could be doing more, and the second was with a cyclist who bikes to work on 2nd. st. After that, I went out Saturday morning to 4th street to interview the manager for Portfolio Coffee House and get her take on how the bike-friendly efforts are going on 4th. Great to finally have people on camera. Since I set up the interviews and interviewed all three people, I also made the video for the group.

The video is on YouTube. (http://youtu.be/0fnahogYnqY)

3rd Update: 2nd Street

This week I have been working on the audio slideshow for the Roar on 2nd Street event that I attended.  The slideshow consists of pictures of the cars displayed at the event, the crowd, the live music, autographs from Grand Prix drivers, and pictures of the drivers themselves.  The slideshow will be set to music with no narration.  Instead of narration the slideshow will be accompanied by the short piece I wrote about the event last week.

More of North Long Beach

Our group has been working on interviewing business people from the Bixby Knolls area in order to determine the factors that make that area so conducive to businesses. We also plan on contacting the councilwoman who represents Bixby Knolls so she can discuss the area in detail as well. This particular story will most likely be in print form. 

In the future we plan on traveling deeper into north Long Beach and reporting on the challenges surrounding that particular community. Our group might do the slideshow story on this particular area. 

Leonardo Poareo 

Downtown Long Beach Update

Last week we completed our interviews for the Long Beach Art Walk.  Now that the rough cut of the video has been done, i will be working on tweaking it for the final product.  Next up we will be going downtown to interview people visiting or working at restaurants to get their take on how business and other matters have changed over the years to remain with our theme of "How Downtown Long Beach has changed over the years".  Shannon, Zinaida and Sofia will be working on securing interviews for the text article which is focusing on changes in the residential areas.

3rd Blog Update: Downtown Long Beach

Members of the group that were free last weekend attended the Long Beach Art Walk and filmed our rough-cut video. They received some insightful feedback from Marek, the owner of the Hellada gallery, along with two other interviews.

Now that the video is complete, our group is going to cover a food and wine festival next Thursday. Here, we hope to capture some photos for our audio slideshow.

Zinaida, Sofia and I are also working on a text article focusing on improvements to the Downtown Long Beach residential area. I also plan on setting up an interview with someone of the Downtown Long Beach Association regarding the election of a new board member in May. Lastly, Sofia plans to interview some local landlords and tenants.

- Shannon Smythe

Central Long Beach-#3 post

This week I am working on setting up an interview with my grandfather, since he was a longshoreman in Long Beach for over twenty years.  My cousin is currently a longshoreman, so I thought it would be a good idea to sit them down together and have two generations discuss their experiences.  I am also working on getting one of my grandfather's friends who is a retired longshoreman.  To go along with the history of the ports I am working on an audio slideshow with different events and pictures that show how the ports were developed, etc.  Although there was some miscommunication about the location of our neighborhood I am glad that I am still able to do these two projects, because in return I get to learn more about my grandfather's history.  However, our group is working on expanding or stories from the ports to fulfill the central Long Beach neighborhood that we were assigned.

-Bree Cahey
Post #3

Downtown Long Beach Update Week of 4/16

This week we were able to go out and finish shooting the 3rd interview for our video. This was the most successful interview yet because it was with Marek, the owner of Hellada Art Gallery who has been a main organizer of the Long Beach Art Walk since it started in the late 90s. He had all kinds of valuable information about the history of downtown and what sets it apart from the other areas of the city, although he lives in a different area himself. I think we can use a lot of his information for the other aspects of our project, such as the text article.

Now that the rough cut video has been edited and uploaded by Melissa, we are preparing for next week's "Taste of DT LB," where restaurants showcase their food outside with samples and people can go from place to place and see what each restaurant has to offer. We plan on interviewing some restaurant owners/goers before and some after to get a feel for how they expect the event to go, and how they felt about it after attending. We're going to use this for our audio slideshow component.

Aside from setting up interviews with restaurants, Zinaida, Shannon and I are working on the text article, which will focus on improvements to DT LB as a residential area. Shannon plans on interviewing someone from the Downtown Long Beach Association about electing a new board member at the end of May, and I plan on securing interviews with landlords and tenants in the area.

-Sofia Yassine

Video for West Long Beach

We had some technical difficulties with the camera, so we are without a big portion of video. We have two interviews set for next week. One is with West Long Beach community and the other is with CSULB economics professor Kristen Monaco. Both will be videotaped.

The video now does not accurately reflect what the final product will be like. Click here for video

North Long Beach update 4/19

Everything is going very well covering North Long Beach. Last friday we covered a Good Friday event in the Bixby Knolls neighborhood of North Long Beach. The video we made showed that north lb is not the violent area many people believe. It consists of many residential and family friendly neighborhoods. Also, most of the business and residents have been very willing and eager to speak with us about how much they enjoy living and working in North LB. The eagerness really displays the pride these people have for the area in which they live and work.

Tomorrow, April 20th, our group will be heading back out to North LB to do some more field reporting. We will begin once again in the Bixby Knolls area and progress north on Atlantic Blvd. We are going to be interviewing different business owners in the area. We will also make sure to talk to the businesses in the area that Councilman Neal's aide came and spoke to our class about. We will be speaking to them regarding a lot of the things that were explained to us in class. Things such as lack of multiple sit down restaurants, only having 1 shopping market and the fact that many residents go to neighboring cities to do most of their shopping. We will also be getting pictures along with our interviews to use in the audio slideshow I will be making.

Once we have all the sound and pictures that we will be using I will be working on making an audio slideshow representing the environment and overall feeling of North Long Beach. The audio slideshow will consist of narration by one of our group members and pictures representing the important issues and assets of various North Long Beach neighborhoods. I will post the new information we uncover in my next blog post.


Posted by:

Josh Saylor

3rd Blog Update: Downtown Long Beach

We went out on the field yesterday to record a video interview with the owner of an art gallery which participated in the Artwalk. He had many interesting things to say about how downtown has changed throughout the years and didn't mind us recording him, which was a nice change. We have plans to go back out into the field and cover a food festival next Thursday. This is where we will hopefully gather pictures and interviews for an audio slideshow. We are still discussing what to cover for the text and interactive part of the project.
-Zinaida Georgiev

3rd blog entry group project

By: Melissa Bell

This week was very successful. After attending the art walk and obtaining our interview I had decided to do some editing. We had a chance to interview the owner of Hallada gallery. This interview was very insightful and interesting. The owner was very informative and has lived in long beach for almost twenty years. He told us the history of Downtown Long Beach and many other interesting stories. He was very helpful and more than willing to take time out of his busy day to help us. After this interview I went home and finished editing the rest of the video. While i dont believe our rough edit is the best as everyone else's, at least I know what we can improve upon. Next week we plan on attending the food and wine festival. Here we plan to interview local restaurant owners. This should be very interesting. I cant wait.

West Long Beach Port Issue and Interviews

On Thursday morning, April 17th, I contacted several leads to discuss setting up an interview for our West Long Beach Report.

John Cross from the West Long Beach Association got back to me quickly and we've scheduled a tour of West Long Beach and interview with him on Tuesday, April 24th. With this interview we are hoping to get the communities perspective of the impact of the ports and what the communities are doing to alleviate the problem.

Also, I was able to contact John from the West Long Beach Project who is also glad to contribute to our report. We will be interviewing him the first week of May.

2nd Update: 2nd street

I have been working on writing a short piece to accompany the slideshow I will create for the Roar on 2nd Street event that I attended.  It includes how long this event has been going on and what its purpose is.  I have also gone through the photos I took from the event to narrow down my selection for when I create the audio slideshow.

Downtown Long Beach

This past weekend, we went to the art walk in Downtown Long Beach to conduct our interviews and record our 90 second video footage. We will also be going back to the venue this week to follow up with a business owner affected by the event. The focus is to report on how the area has changed over the years.

2nd St. & 4th St. Update

So this week our group ventured down to 2nd to interview business owners & bikers alike about the impact of bike-friendly efforts in Long Beach. While we started out with good intentions, a lot of the workers at the businesses we spoke to didn't seem to know about their bike-frienly efforts, or told us to come back and speak to a manager. Others were willing to talk to us, but wouldn't allows us to film them or record them. Thus we struck out big time. :[ We were only able to take pictures and minimal stock video of 2nd. St, and only one person spoke to us and allowed us to record them.

Might have to change our video of bike-friendly saturdays into an audio slideshow. Going to try to contact businesses by phone or email to get some more interviews.

Downtown Long Beach Blog 4/12

As a group we have decided to go to the Artwalk that is being held in downtown Long Beach this saturday evening in order to gather our 90 second video. We plan on interviewing members and participants of the artwalk and discussing how downtown Long Beach has changed throughout the years. Our focus is on how downtown has changed whether it be for the better or the worse.

Blog post #2

By: Melissa Bell

This week is the big Art walk. Downtown Long Beach puts on an art walk every first Saturday of the month. Here our group will attend and take interviews of those who partake in this event. We plan on asking them how long beach has changed over the years and try to establish.. how long beach has changed. I have been to this event previously and was not disappointed. I am excited for my group to see the culture that downtown has and other fun entertainment it has to offer.

2nd Street Update

We attended the Roar on 2nd Street event, held to promote the LB Grand Prix.  Video and photos were taken of the live music, race cars on display and the drivers signing autographs.  The event turned out to be much smaller than expected, covering only one block on one side of second street yet drew quite a crowd.  Talked with the drivers present, attendees, and tried to get a few words with the band but they did not take a break during the event.  A preview story about the LB Grand Prix and slideshow with audio recording of the live music at the event will most likely be how this event is covered.

Central Long Beach

As has been posted by my fellow group members, we plan to focus one of our stories on the ports of Long Beach and the air pollution they have created for the surrounding community. As I have driven down to the west end of PCH I have been able to see how close the community, such as Cabrillo High School, is to these ports and I plan on interviewing some of the athletes at this school along with coaches to get a better understanding of how the air quality may be affecting them. I would particularly like to find a student who may have asthma to hear how they have been directly affected by the poor air quality. In addition, I think it would be good to speak with those who work and who are opposed to the ports, and so I plan on interviewing a girl I work with (who also works at the ports), along with one of the advocates who are pushing for better air quality initiatives. We plan on covering these stories with a combination of both text, photographs, video and possibly interactive links to look further into the issue.


-Brittany Hays

Bike for Art Scavenger Hunt: slideshow

   Costumed cyclists and volunteers came together on April 1 at the Museum of Latin American Art for a public art scavenger hunt.
   The "Bike for Art" scavenger hunt was a proposal by Olympic cyclist and Long Beach native Antonio Cruz.  "I'm always trying to connect biking with whatever kind of cause you can attach to it," Cruz said, "and I thought, why not biking for the arts?"
   Molly Gardner- Grants and Special Projects Coordinator for the Long Beach City Arts Council was  approached by MOLAA once the project was approved. Gardner and Cruz decided that the event would best serve as a fundraiser for another Arts Council project, "The Collaborative," an art gallery downtown that was established by the Arts Council to showcase emerging artists and innovative techniques.
    In this slideshow of the events that day Cruz, Gardner, and some volunteers and participants talk about their experience in the event.

Downtown Long Beach

Our group has decided to create a story that focuses on ways in which downtown Long Beach has changed over the years. We plan to focus on the changes that have occurred among local retail outlets, restaurants, pubs, nonprofits, and other notable organizations in the area, while also covering the many entertainment events held within the area. This Saturday, Melissa, and David and I are attending the monthly Long Beach Art Walk. We plan to interview local artists, storeowners, and other residents in attendance about how they feel Long Beach has positively and negatively changed in recent years, relating it to how they feel about Downtown Long Beach in general. We will record the interviews using a camera.

-Sofia Yassine

West Long Beach

Tomorrow, Cynthia Cesarez and I will be attending an air quality work group meeting with Jessica Tovar from LBACA. We plan on interviewing Tovar after the meeting utilizing a voice recorder and camera to capture the interview. Portions of the work group meeting will be recorded as well for use in the photo slide show (audio) and b-roll or the video portion of the project.

Downtown Long Beach

My group is covering the downtown plan. We will be going to conduct our interviews with neighboring businesses that will inevitably be affected by the plans to get feedback and opinions. We will also possibly be attending a grand prix event in downtown this week. My responsibility will be taking video coverage and assisting with interviewing our subjects.

Downtown Long Beach Update

So far we have met and decided to focus on the new plan for Downtown Long Beach. We will be visiting events as well as recording and interviewing the people attending those specific events. This coming Tuesday we are planning on going downtown to interview individuals about the plan and this Saturday a few of us were considering attending an event downtown.
-Zinaida Georgiev

Central Long Beach

My group member Patrick recently visited the Long Beach Downtown art walk.  However, my job is going to be to go take pictures of the artwork that is located within our district of Central Long Beach.  As a group we decided that the ports and the air pollution is a very important matter within our district.  We are going to go to the schools that are closest to the port and try to interview athletes at these schools to see if the air quality has affected their lives such as their ability to play sports.  These are the two main stories that we are focusing on, and will see what other stories these two topics produce.

-Bree Cahey

Belmont Shore / 4th st. Update

Our group has pretty much decided what stories we're going to cover for this project. As for my part, I'll be concentrating on the campaign to make Long Beach more bike friendly as it pertains to 2nd. & 4th streets. This week, I've looked through the people I contacted for my individual story and heavily at the bike long beach site to gather potential sources for on-camera, video interviews. Hopefully some of the group mates and I will be able to meet up with these people during the week or for bike-friendly Saturdays to get their take on how LB is more bike-friendly. Will also be making a list of questions to ask any bikers we encounter on the way.

Central Long Beach Update

My group and I have been assigned central Long Beach, which will be covering everything from South of PCH with the 710 to Junipero on the East side. We are covering different individual aspects but all of them are really tied to the Ports of Long Beach. We are hopeful to interview workers, whether they are past or present, students affected by the Ports, and experts of the Ports. Our group is very optimistic and have a lot of creative ideas. We want a lot of media, slide shows, and print pieces so we get all aspects covered and make it easy for our audiences to understand every one's side on the Ports of Long Beach.

The West Long Beach neighborhood is a large community afflicted with many environmental and health problems caused by the ports. Because of this large prevalence in the area, myself and the group have decided to focus our reporting on the effects of ports on the community.

At the moment, everyone in the group is assigned to contact someone to lock in leads for interviews to take place next week. We hope to get an interview with a school nurse, Jessica Tovar from LLBACA and a council member in charge of the provisions for emissions. This will provide a great background for the story and encompass the three areas we hope to focus on: the affected community, the policy makers, and those who work at the ports. By taking each area into account, we will be able to report the issue from every aspect.

West Long Beach update

West Long Beach is surrounded by freeways, the port and railway. My group and I have decided to cover the effects of this industrial presence on the community. We hope to focus beyond the health effects including the economical, social and commercial elements, proposed change and lack of change have on this particular neighborhood.

Individually I've contacted sources. I also completed lots of research looking into statistical and background information of the effects the large transport industry of Long Beach has had, which I've shared with my group.

Downtown LB

By: Melissa Bell

This week our group has finally decided to focus on how Downtown Long Beach has changed. Is it for the better? Is it worse? We plan to contact local businesses and see if they would be interested in a interview and to share how they think long beach has changed. We have decided to focus our attention on the rough cut video first because this will be due very soon. Our duty today was to think of an idea for the video and try to contact at least one person relating to downtown. I'm excited to see what we learn.

Downtown Long Beach

For our project on downtown Long Beach , we have discussed covering events or changes that have benefited the community in the downtown area. We also talked about researching the "downtown plan" further and following how it will change/affect downtown. By attending events in the area, we could interview locals or organizations and get their feedback on the plan.

Personally, I am better with print so I will be helping with the writing portion. I also have a Canon Rebel camera that takes high quality pictures, so I can help with the photography portion as well. We talked about using an audio slideshow for these photographs and also filming interviews and events for our video.