Nothing like community journalism

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

You can’t make a living in journalism and nobody reads the paper

anymore anyway.

It’s two of the first things you learn when you stick your toe

into the journalism pool. I heard it from professors and classmates.

Even my mother made a point to tell me on a regular basis, “make sure

you have a back up.”

But I had listened to too many U2 songs and watched “Salvador” too

many times to turn my back on becoming a war correspondent in some

third-world country. I dreamed of being one of the last out of the

embassy during a violent coup.

So why am I writing my first column as city editor for a community

newspaper?

After college I came home to Orange County and sent my flimsy

resume to every newspaper I could find in the phone book. I was

willing to start anywhere: intern, news assistant, whatever it would

take.

That’s when I first talked to Tony Dodero. The Coastline’s editor

was city editor of the Huntington Beach Independent at the time and

he led me to my first real job in journalism: part-time news

assistant at the Orange Independent -- a paper that doesn’t exist

anymore (an all-too common reality).

I didn’t stay there long and over the next seven years my life

took a few twists. Two children and a mortgage later, I find the idea

of being a war correspondent a completely foreign one.

But my path is hardly a disappointment. It hadn’t taken long for

me to fall in love with community journalism.

The truth is, less people are reading the paper. The rest of the

world isn’t quite like Laguna (if you haven’t noticed). Here

everybody seems to have a paper in their hand in the morning.

Elsewhere, people tend to get most of their news from TV or the Web.

But if any of them needs to know what’s going on in their city and

their schools they have to turn to their community papers. Even the

local sections of the Times and Register don’t give enough of the

meat.

Community journalism is about informing people with more than

scandal or even the big scoop (not that we don’t want to get the

story before anyone else has it). In community journalism I get to

feel like I’m doing a service. I’m helping to watch for any strange

goings on in politics and at the same time making sure everyone knows

what a great job the Laguna Canyon Foundation is doing in the effort

to preserve nature.

I get to hear the behind-the-scenes, off-the-record grumblings

about issues like the flood control channel, Treasure Island or the

3rd Street development.

The fact that most Lagunans are reading the paper means that many

of them are going to give their opinion about it. But whether they

want to thank us for an article about their son or chastise us for

leaving out an important event, I welcome the input and believe that

with enough of it, and enough hard work from us, we can put out a

paper that will serve this community well.

* ALICIA LOPEZ is the city editor of the Coastline Pilot. She can

be reached at (949) 494-4321 or by e-mail at alicia.lopez@latimes.com