Elizabeth Gill

Community Filmmaking

2009-01-24T23:42:13Z

      Professor Jonathan Pope Evans took a group of California State University, Los Angeles Television and Film students and a handful of East Los Angeles teenagers and over the course of a 10-week semester, produced four successful short films. On December 5, Plaza de la Raza, a community cultural arts center, hosted "Through the Eyes of Eastside Youth: An Evening of Community Films" showcasing the result of a service learning course called "Community Filmmaking" at Cal State Los Angeles.
]]>       "The kids wanted to make these films, but to do it we literally had to figure out how to move mountains with nothing," says Jonathan Pope Evans, the Cal State Los Angeles film professor of the filmmaking course. Evans, who is also a producer and director of independent films, compared the class' filmmaking strategy to "guerilla warfare" in terms of their limited resources and their unconventional style.
      "You have to be kind of crazy to do it. There were a lot of times I'd be on the phone in the middle of the night getting voicemails with problems about production, or I'd be on the phone at midnight telling someone, 'Ok, I need four extension cords, a bag of rice, and a coffee maker,'" says Evans, describing the types of unforeseeable scenarios he would encounter over the course of the semester.
      Christie Young, a Cal State undergrad who served as Pope Evans' assistant during the course of the semester, reveals that the night before the opening of the film screening, they found out that Plaza de la Raza, which runs a Performing and Visual Arts program, lacked the facilities to hold a movie screening.
      "They told us they could hold a screening, but forgot to tell us we needed to bring all the materials," says Young. Evans spent the remaining hours leading up to the screening searching for and setting up projectors and stereo equipment, paying out of his pocket if he needed to.
       While the fact that these eastside teenagers and film students only had ten weeks to start and finish films with no experience is amazing, they are also the first group of students to have done so.
      "It's something we've been wanting to do for awhile and this fall we finally made it happen," says John Ramirez, the Acting Director of Communication Studies at Cal State Los Angeles. "The fact that nothing went wrong proves we did something right."
      For a long time it looked as though the Community Filmmaking class wouldn't happen. Ramirez and Michelle Hawley, the Faculty Director of Service Learning at Cal State Los Angeles pushed for the class for years before it finally began this fall. Ramirez recounts that the hardest part was getting through the bureaucracy of the University system.
      "New ideas tend to scare them," he said. Ramirez says that it took countless consent forms, background checks, insurance agreements, and release forms in association with the University as well as Plaza de la Raza, which hosted the site of the class. "It's not just that your renting out equipment to college students, but that your renting it out to minors as well and they're going to be taking these cameras off campus, off of Plaza de la Raza, and going to shoot scenes. What happens if one of them drops a camera? What happens if someone gets hurt?"
      After the logistics were taken care of, Evans took over as the instructor of the service-learning course.
      "I think that a crucial aspect was having the right people. The students had to know what they were getting themselves into beforehand and not be afraid to get their hands dirty. They had to jump in and make things happen," says Evans.
       On the first day of the course, only six teenagers showed up at Plaza de la Raza in East Los Angeles, which was in charge of advertising for community involvement for the class.
       "I pointed at each one of them and I said, "You, go bring back five people to next class with you." By pulling people in from local high schools and elementary schools, Evans gave himself more responsibility, but also more local youth involved in the program.
      On the night of the film screening, the auditorium was filled with friends and families of the college students and teenagers. Gina Knox had a supporting role in Girl Drama, which features a boy who manipulates two unknowing girls and starts a fight between them. The film features a physically choreographed fight between the two girls and the repercussions they each face at home later that day. Knox, a Senior at Montebello High School, got involved in the program because she wanted to produce and direct, but ended learning how to act as well through the program.
      Jasmin Lerma, a 15-year-old from Wilson High School who also starred in Girl Drama, received a notice in the mail from Plaza de la Raza about the class and decided to enroll instead of taking piano lessons. She also brought her friends along, who after watching the screening became interested in joining the program.
      "Girl Drama was one of my favorites because it's a real story from their experiences in High School, and I think that shines through," says Evans. He describes the films have a common thread in their autobiographical nature, "They're all about bullies, in a way."
      The youngest student in the course was 11-year-old Albert Celis from Polytechnic School in Pasadena. In addition to starring in Payback under his Cal State mentor Victor Castineda, Celis directed The People's Voice by himself about the aftermath of the 2008 presidential election.
      "I think Victor had mentioned in passing that he was gay and I had mentioned my own situation with my husband and son," explained Evans. "I think the result of the election made him really angry, so he went out and shot this movie virtually by himself."
      In the film, Celis travels around to interview people such as the Director of the Democratic Headquarters in East Los Angeles and people on the street at the "No on Proposition 8" rally.
      In addition to asking people to explain why they voted for Barack Obama or John McCain, he asks them how they feel about Proposition 8 passing in California. The selection of voices he includes in his video all seem to defy a different stereotype. There is a woman who describes herself as Mormon standing on the corner of Caesar Chavez Boulevard who explains that she doesn't think Proposition 8 is fair. Another student at John Marshall High School who is Christian explains, "The bible also says love thy neighbor. A hundred years ago I wouldn't have been allowed to attend this school. It's discrimination" about the passing of the proposition. The Campaign Manager in the East Los Angeles office for the "No on Proposition 8" campaign tells the camera, "Latinos don't just vote one way." Throughout the entire time the audience is reminded who made the film, as it is shot from the camera angle of someone under five feet tall.
      After the premiere, Albert's father goes to shake the hands of John Ramirez and Jonathan Pope Evans to thank them for the filmmaking class. He says of young people like Albert in the class, "They have great things to say, they just need a way to say it."
      Jonathan Pope Evans plans on running the class again next fall, this time expecting more involvement. The films, which he still describes as a work-in-progress, will continue to be edited so that they can be entered in film festivals such as "Reel Rasquache 2008: Festival of the U.S. Latino Experience in Film & Art" hosted by Cal State Los Angeles in late May.

A Lesson In Fire Safety

2008-11-25T03:17:02Z

      It's hard to believe that the Tea Fire, burned 1,940 acres, destroyed 231 residences, and caused an estimated $6,100,000 to fight, was caused by a group of college students who didn't fully extinguish their bonfire.

      "It's carelessness, it's negligence, and it's illegal," says Captain Eli Iskow of the Santa Barbara Fire Department, the team that led the investigation of the Tea Fire. Iskow has seen people lose their lives and end up in critical condition as a result of unintentional fires. "We could have several of those a year. It's not uncommon. It's carelessness that does it."

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      It's hard to believe that people would walk away from a lit fire. An investigation into the Tea Fire reported that those that started the bonfire thought they had extinguished the fire when they left the site.

Captain Iskow explains how this can happen. "People dump their coals from their barbecues into trash cans or even out into the wild. It can be a day or two or even three later, and those coals can still hold enough heat sometimes. The wind then makes them hotter. It exposes them to the air, feeds them oxygen, and makes them hot enough to ignite combustible material like grass, leaves, or dry twigs. And then we have a fire."

      This phenomenon can also happen with coals in campsites that have not been fully extinguished. Wind can blow the cool ash off the top of the coals and then ignite the hotter material underneath, which can then be blown from the campfire site into nearby leaves or grass. Iskow advises that in addition to completely soaking the coals until there is no smoke or heat, "You have to touch them with your hand. If they're cool all the way through, you know they're out."

       While Public Service Announcements about fire safety may be informative, people have to take responsibility to end the trend of careless fires in California, advises Iskow. "It's getting worse year to year and there's nothing telling us it's going to get any better anytime soon."

Information on fire safety and prevention can be found at the Santa Barbara Fire Department website at sbcfire.com

Election Morning in San Francisco

2008-11-06T05:33:55Z

Before the celebration and crowds that erupted over the Bay Area on election evening, the atmosphere on election morning in San Francisco was quiet excitement. Polling stations were opened across the city, but the most crowded polling station was the basement of San Francisco City Hall. Although this polling station drew the most people, the lines never got a chance to develop because the number of volunteers that turned out seemed to equal the number of voters. The volunteers ranged from Senior Citizens to children as young as young as twelve years old who are shown handing out "I Voted" stickers as people entered and left the basement of City Hall.
            Upstairs in the ground level of City Hall, couples were getting married atop the large flight of steps while people passed by down below en route to the voting booths. Outside, people gathered in the community garden and cheered in front of City Hall holding signs supporting Obama, Nader, No on Proposition 8, and Yes on Proposition K.
      At another popular polling station off of Castro in San Francisco's Castro District, where a house with a sign reading "Heart of the Castro" was transformed into a voting station.
      At Northpoint Coffee Co. in Sausalito, people quietly read the morning paper while shadowed by portraits of political leaders lining the walls of the coffee shop.The graphite portraits are done by Amanda Pirot as part of her collection "Politicals, Leaders, and Cultural Icons."

"Debate" Lacking Actual Debate Qualifications

2008-10-11T22:10:31Z

The second presidential debate came and went, and my hopes for a real debate were once again dashed. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, (OED) a debate equals "Contention in argument; dispute, controversy; discussion; esp. the discussion of questions of public interest in Parliament or in any assembly."

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Here is a transcript of the debate from CNN here, and you can decide for yourself if it holds up to the general definition of a debate listed in the OED. Of course, it is tough to have too much of contention, dispute, or controversy when the rules for the debate are as extensive as they were. Lynn Sweet, a columnist for the Chicago-Sun Times, wrote a blog about the rules can be found here. According to which, the candidates can't directly ask questions of each other or even move outside of their "designated areas." The moderator is not allowed to ask follow-up questions of the audience member's questions and the audience member's aren't allowed to switch questions or ask a follow-up.

Jack Shafer, the editor-at-large from Slate magazine wrote an interesting piece entitled, "This 'Town Hall' Debate is Neither" which I think emphasizes the fact that politics, especially presidential debates, are more of a performance than a genuine, substantial debate. In the article he writes about how in a real town-hall debate, "The crazy questions, the impolite questions, and even the left-field questions about such things as the price of a gallon of milk push candidates out of their comfort zones, away from their talking points, and to some uncultivated acre of their psyches where voters can observe their thinking processes" and predicted that we'd "see almost none of that" in this town-hall debate.

I asked Jack Shafer his opinion about why this town-hall debate was, according to the title of the article, "more of a dance recital than an honest head-to-head between the candidates." Was it because of the economic crisis? The nature of the candidates? Why had these rules been put in place to hamper the authenticity of the debate? He answered that "It's all about the campaigns, which set the rules, trying to limit the damage from the "debate." Nobody gets fired if the match is a draw, which is what I think it was." Though it may be the truth, it still seems disappointing that the majority of the mainstream media organizations are posting polls about who "won" the debate or recounting quotations from the debate instead of challenging these campaign rules. I think these rules should almost come as a disclaimer alongside anyone who watches or reads the transcript or articles about the debate reading "no actual debating happening here."

Slideshow: First Attempt

2008-10-02T01:27:40Z

Obama-McCain Face-Off Not Exactly Newsworthy, But Media Tries Anyway

2008-09-27T23:15:00Z

As I started looking at different sources of media coverage after Friday's debate between Obama and McCain, I started thinking about the role of the media in determining what is "newsworthy." After watching the debate, I looked at some of the coverage today on the websites of various news organizations including Fox News, MSNBC, and The Washington Post. These articles have titles such as "No knockouts in debate: Economic jabs, then punches on world affairs" (The Washington Post) or "Temperature of debate? Lukewarm" (also from The Washington Post). These articles seemed fairly objective in presenting both positives and negatives from each candidate while also acknowledging that nothing especially amazing happened during the debate. This was also my impression after watching the debate. The debate was significant in that it was the first official debate between Obama and McCain in the 2008 run for President, but at the same time nothing new or out of the ordinary seemed to happen. Both McCain and Obama articulated aspects of their campaign or positions on events that the general public had already heard before.

[Full Debate Seen Below]
]]> MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann interview with Rachel Maddox, which can be seen below.

While the newspaper print articles mentioned above seemed more objective in describing what took place during the actual event, MSNBC's Maddox and Olbermann instead seemed to focus on the "juiciest soundbites" such as McCain's mistake in pronouncing Iranian President Ahmadinejad's name or Obama telling McCain "you were wrong" several times in a row.

In the video below, also from Keith Olbermann's Countdown, Howard Fineman. MSNBC Political Analyst, is interviewed "Live from the 'spin' tent" in which he discusses how the Republican campaign is attempting to "spin" Obama's words from the debate to support their own campaign.


According to the Fox News channel host Shepard Smith and guest Chris Wallace in the post-debate analysis video seen below, both Obama and McCain had good and bad moments during the debate. However, Shepard Smith ends the post-debate analysis by going into a discussing about how Obama seemed to call McCain "John" instead of Senator McCain during the first half of the debate. He went on to say, without explicitly saying it, that in "this part of the country" that is considered rude and was a mis-step on Obama's part.


Even moderator Jim Lehrer seemed to be interested in the topic of newsworthy during the debate. It states in this Associated Press article that "Moderator Jim Lehrer of PBS kept his questions simple to get the men talking. He even tried to push the candidates to address each other instead of the camera, a request that had some success as more heated foreign policy exchanges came." This Fox News article compared him to being in "teacher mode when trying to get the candidates to actually speak to one another, like getting kindergartners to play together rather than alongside each other. But these two weren't playing."

Whether the lackluster debate was a result of the recent status of America's economy or both candidates' attempt to play it safe in the first round, the media, especially the broadcast programs, did their best to make the debate newsworthy. Whether this attempt is a positive or negative trait, I'm not exactly sure.

How to Spot Spin

2008-09-21T00:36:19Z

When I first heard the name SpinSpotter.com, I was unsure how seriously the website took it's claim to "spot spin." Upon visiting the website, however, their mission in providing news free of "spin" or bias seems very real and earnest. It even gets quite technical.

On the Spin Spotter Ethics page under the "Rules of Spin" section, it goes to say, "The neat thing about the adaptive SpinSpotter technology is the ability to filter and identify the presence of spin in any news article, web site, press release, or thinly disguised political talk sheet. With the guidance of our Journalism Advisory Board, we'll continually refine our algorithms and spin-catching skills." I don't know much about algorithms or the technicalities to how SpinSpotter.com really works, but the fact that one can rely on a computer to detect spin makes me skeptical.

]]> DEMOfall 08: SpinSpotter aims to clear up media bias" in "Venture Beat."]

I do think that the page of "rules" on SpinSpotter.com goes on to list some very crucial and valuable skills for journalists, but personally I feel uncomfortable relying on a computer alone to detect them for me.

In an article written by Alan Zagier for the Associated Press entitled "Former Microsoft exec's software takes aim at media bias," it includes a quote at the end that resonated with me from "blogger" and Salon co-founder Seth Rosenberg who says, "Even if SpinSpotter could somehow perfect its algorithms and unerringly remove all the human perspective and reporter's voice from the articles it points at, you'd find there's nothing of any value left."

Along this same idea, if some type of program were to completely rid news of perspective and bias, it would have the same feel as a fact sheet or press release. Computers could probably just generate news stories free of spin from input facts alone. However, I think that one of the reasons that there is a necessity for journalists in society is because there is something missing from basic facts formulated by computers. No one wants to read a newspaper full of press releases.

It seems as though SpinSpotter.com could be an interesting tool to use when reading or writing pieces for the sake of seeing another perspective or lens based on the computer generated spin trackings as well as the perspective of people who post their opinions on a piece. However, by stating it's mission to rid the journalistic world of spin seems to suggest that they fear the general public possesses no critical thinking abilities of their own. I would argue that most people know not to believe everything they read. I think especially today with the internet, there is a huge amount and variety of stories, information, and opinions at everyone's finger tips.

A little after visiting SpinSpotter, I decided to look at The New Yorker online. I came across the article in the Humor section entitled "My Gal" by George Saunders. Can you imagine what this piece would look like under "spinoculars"? It is absolutely filled with sarcasm and satire, and yet it is one of the best things I've read all day.

While I think think that there is a necessity for objective reporting and news reports based on facts instead of opinion, I would never want to rid journalism (because I do feel that this piece by Saunders fits into some sort of journalistic genre) completely of journalistic perspective. While I think that the intentions of this SpinSpotter are good, I'm not sure if the mission to erase spin is the answer. Spin isn't always a problem when it's transparent instead of disguised as objective journalism. But, I do think that SpinSpotter is an interesting experiment.

[Image found in The New Yorker by Steve Brodner]

No Such Thing as a Free Ride

2008-09-13T02:47:37Z

When talking about the media coverage of the 2008 Presidential election, it is interesting to think about who might be getting a "free ride" with the press in terms of media coverage. Recently Sarah Palin agreed to sit down for her first interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson. When I first heard this news from online blogging sites, the posts seemed pretty skeptical of Gibson's ability to ask "hard hitting" questions. For example, see number 6 of this blogger's post on The Huffington Post or this post on Gawker which refers to Gibson as Charlie 'Softball' Gibson. There seemed to be a lot of questions raised about whether Palin was getting a free ride with the press by selecting to grant an interview to Charlie Gibson.

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It doesn't seem that Gibson is serving her up questions to which she has prepared answers, but instead the interview seemed to reveal her naivety as a politician. Most of her answers seemed generic and vague, even when Gibson posed the same question multiple times in order to get a concrete answer (such as when he asked multiple times about the Bush doctrine seen here and whether or not the US has the right to go across the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan with or without the permission of the Pakistani government). Gibson asks the question a few times, on the third time saying, "I got lost in a blizzard of words there. Is that a yes..."The questions Gibson asks don't necessarily paint Palin in a positive light, but instead expose her views on the war on Iraq and domestic issues such as abortion.

I think the fact that there seemed to be skepticism about Palin's interview with Gibson instead seems to highlight the fact that the media seems to favor the opposing candidate, Barack Obama. In my opinion, I can see the reasons for why Obama seems to have gained "celebrity status" in the press just by watching clips of him speak in comparison to those of Senator John McCain. However, if I was to worry about someone getting a free ride, and I'm speaking as a personal Obama fan myself, I would look towards coverage of Obama instead of Sarah Palin. Even News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch predicts Obama to win the election, stating in this Reuters article "Murdoch said he had played a role in the endorsement by the New York Post, one of his global stable of papers, in endorsing Obama during the Democratic primary with Hillary Clinton in New York."

I'm sure that everyone has seen the "Yes We Can" Obama music video by Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am featuring celebrities such as actress Scarlett Johansson and singer Common singing along to an Obama speech.

Just yesterday when I was driving home, some sort of remix of Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention came on the radio station 103.1 FM. I looked it up when I got home and it can be heard here.

This Walt Handelsman cartoon, published in Newsday by Tribune Media Services, is another example of the type of excitement and emotion that Obama is generating. While I wouldn't necessarily say that Obama is getting a free ride from the press, (with New Yorker covers such as this one) I would say that he is probably the candidate closest to getting one.

Coverage of Sarah Palin: An Example of Neutrality versus Transparency

2008-09-06T20:41:02Z

I can't help bring up Sarah Palin when discussing transparent versus neutral journalism.

I think one particularly interesting story that appeared on Gawker on the night of Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention is this one, in which Reuter's published a story on Palin's speech before it actually happened. I clicked on the link in the story before the speech took place and Reuter's did, in fact, publish the story before the event. This story, tagged by author Ryan Tate as "Journalismism," writes, "Presumably, Reuters's coverage of the forthcoming Republican convention address by Sarah Palin is based on a pre-distributed written version of the speech, and that's why the report at left was posted at least an hour ago. But shouldn't the future tense be employed, or a disclaimer be included, given that the speech hasn't, you know, occurred yet?"

]]> Convention Watch: Obama Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speech." Before the acceptance speech, journalism school director Geneva Overholser gave a few words about what she saw taking place in the field of journalism. I don't remember her exact words, but I remember her mentioning that in the past, reporters would generally have their stories finished before the candidate actually spoke, minus a few changes here and there, based on these pre-distributed speech transcripts. However, she mentioned that with everything going on in the field of journalism today, this type of reporting could no longer pass.

One of the reasons I found this particular story on Gawker so interesting is because it specifically addressed these issues. The Reuter's author cannot possibly write a neutral, balanced piece reviewing Palin's speech if the story is written before the speech has even taken place. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why it was taken off the site.

It seems as though a general rule of thumb when deciding if journalism is neutral or transparent is that the journalist will probably let you know that he is being transparent by telling you so. One example I can think of is "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," in which host Jon Stewart does not hesitate to remind you that his show is a comedy show and is not designed to serve as a balanced news source. A recent episode of Jon Stewart's show discussing Sarah Palin can be seen below.

In this episode, Stewart does not only hesitate to give you his opinion, but he runs through certain Fox News correspondent Karl Rove's contradicting coverage of Sarah Palin versus Hilary Clinton. Whenever a journalist or news station claims to be "fair and balanced," as does Fox news, a warning flag goes up for me.

[Image courtesy of Huffingtonpost.com]

I'm not saying that neutral journalism isn't possible, but in more cases than not, there is a certain amount of bias, baggage, or angle that the journalist or news program is taking towards the story. This is especially the case in news stories now covering the upcoming election. But, that's just my opinion.

McCain on Leno

2008-08-31T00:51:01Z

In Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody," he compares the state of journalism today to the late 1400s when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, thus replacing the sacred role of the scribe with the technology of mass reproduction. Today, legacy journalism sources find themselves competing with the rise of Internet accessible user generated content in the form of blogs, citizen journals, etc.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. We Blog Cartoons.

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This episode of Leno, which has been written about, blogged about, and broadcasted over various websites, is a good example of a hybrid between legacy news and amateur news. "The Tonight Show" itself remains both in the genre of a reputable legacy program as well as an entertainment talk show directed toward the general public. While "The Tonight Show" airs on NBC and Leno is able to host people such as Senator John McCain, he is also a comedian who brings on guests such as celebrities Paris Hilton and Mary-Kate Olsen. Although the show is far from unfiltered or unscripted, the conversational nature of the program gives Leno the ability to joke with McCain about his age as well as the number of houses he owns. However, there are moments when this becomes awkward or tricky, such as this moment when the interview goes from joking to serious in an abrupt manner.

While McCain seems to be criticized for turning the comedic interview to serious on programs such as MSNBC's "Morning Joe," The New York Times "The Caucus" blog by Michael Cooper instead focuses on the more humorous aspects of McCain's visit when he "jokes" about his age and the inability of anyone to get "a word in edgewise" with Senator Joseph R. Biden. Even though this is a blog, it seems to restrain from vocalizing a specific opinion about the potential presidential candidate. It's position as a part of legacy news media The New York Times can perhaps serve as an explanation for why the tone is much different than the comments featured on youtube.com.

It is interesting to compare how this clip is broadcasted and reviewed on a variety of websites and programs. If you take just one of the many clips of the video on youtube.com, entitled "Mc Cain POW-POW-POWs on Leno," seen here, there are almost 600 user comments on this video alone. These comments are unfiltered and either blatantly oppose and disagree with one another or seem to support each other. One example on this video is Swordsquire's comment, "Sooo...WTF??? The POW is HIS blanket answer to everything?... Lol! What a moron!" to which wayzatabball33 replies, "True that." In between the rants and name-calling, however, is an uncensored feel for how people respond to this episode on Jay Leno.
On MSNBC's coverage of the Democratic National Convention amongst a panel of hosts, anchor Rachel Maddow is vocal about her opinion that McCain seems to be using his status as a past Prisoner of War as a "crutch" and that he "risks turning it into a punch line."
This clip can be seen on Youtube.

The accessibility of both these various legacy news sources as well as unfiltered public opinion is beneficial because a variety of sides and opinions are presented, thus allowing the user to weigh the different information before making up his or her own mind. One particular answer is no longer handed to the "audience" member, thus making his or her role in society a more dynamic and active one.

Prototype's Women's Center Not For the Well-Behaved

2008-08-26T02:40:27Z

As I was leaving Prototypes Women's Center, which houses Women's Re-entry Court participants in Pomona, California, a bumper sticker plastered to the outside of a conference room caught my eye: "Well behaved women rarely make history."

I think this quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich captured the spirit of the re-entering facility: the rebellious spirit of these women as unique and separate to the vast majority of society coupled with a new sense of self-empowerment with this position. As we sat in front of a selected group of 8 women from the facility, we listened to the stories of how they came to be in the position they are now: abandonment, rape, drug addiction, abuse, Grand Theft Auto, prison, multiple arrests, etc.

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Although their individual stories differed, there existed a common thread in their testimonies to how the program not only saved their lives, but for the first time gave them a sense of self-worth and self-esteem that they had never experienced before. For the first time they weren't desperately seeking drugs to "feel numb," but instead cared about the position of their lives and responsibilities not just as citizens and parents, but to themselves as well. According to Lou Campbell, the computer teacher at Prototypes, "many of these women's self-esteem is in the toilet" when they arrive at Prototypes. However, something as simple as a basic skills computer class has not only vocational use, but also can greatly benefit the women's self-esteem as well.

These were women who couldn't even count the number of times they had been arrested or the number of cars they had stolen. They certainly wouldn't qualify as "well behaved women." However these women exist as proof that they deserved a second chance and that more funding needs to be given to programs such as Prototypes, which boasts an 85% two-year success rate. Criminal Justice Policy Advisor Kimberly Wong supports this program because it "shows a way that is not prison." As true to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's words, they were making history as one of the first successful programs for re-entry in the state of California.

Why Journalism

2008-08-26T02:33:43Z

The first thing that drew me to journalism was the writing aspect. As an undergraduate at Columbia, I majored in English Literature and Creative Writing, so I was usually immersed in various forms of fiction and poetry rather than studying the practice of journalism. My interests in journalism developed out of the fact that journalists tell stories that aren't just metaphorically, but also literally true. I like stories and pieces of journalism that make you think and bring you into a world or event that you would otherwise not have known it existed.

]]> I appreciate the profession of Journalism because it allows me to use my curiousity and ask questions. Although I am officially a Print Journalism student, I find Broadcast and Online equally exciting and am very interested in getting to combine various forms of multimedia with writing, such as photojournalism. Some areas of journalism that interest me are sports, fashion, and long form documentary.