“Peril in South LA:” LA Times Series Breaks “Promise”

It’s not often that South Los Angeles makes it way onto the front page of the Los Angeles Times. In fact, coverage of the area has been so consistently bad that some (including “LA Four” rioter Henry Watson) partially blame the closed mindedness of the dominant paper in the city for the LA Riots of 1992. Gangs, violence and crime make their way into print; everything else is marginalized.

From South LA back to South Central: Gangs, crime, violence and cops ("courtesy" of the Los Angeles Times)

In true form, the LA Times kicked off a series about South Los Angeles yesterday with Scott Gold’s three-page spread, “With Crime in Decline, a Fragile Sense of Hope.” Along with a headline that successfully undermined the positive aspects of the story before it even began, the front-center image was typical of LA Times-style, South LA reportage: cops and criminals. The story itself was also completely in line with what we’ve come to expect. Gangs rule the area with leisurely ease, killing at will. Residents live in perpetual fear. The entire zone south of USC is basically a playground for criminals, the buildings nothing more than canvasses for taggers.

The images that Gold creates are very clear. He begins with the story of two boys and a gun. Police officers scold their mother for allowing the weapon to be kept at home, until, “finally, defeated, she whispered: ‘This is South-Central.’”

From the outset, Gold’s vision of the residents of “South Central” is punctuated with pity. Although he claims that the premise of the story is the glimmer of hope offered by declining crime rates, the article is essentially a caricature of gang life in South LA and the brilliance of the police force for its forceful and increasing governance of the area.

“This is still a troubled place, and will be for years to come,” writes Gold. “But police, residents and civic leaders alike believe there is an opportunity here, however fragile, to restore a sense of community that many feared was lost forever in the crack-and-bullet epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s. If so, South L.A.’s identity within the city could begin to shift, revealing a far more dynamic place than the one cemented in the public consciousness as an intractable ghetto.”

It’s claims such as this that makes me wonder whether or not LA Times reporters ever really pound the pavements south of the Times Building. Gold seems to believe that South Los Angeles has been in a state of perpetual, uneasy stagnation since the LA Riots, and that beneficial change and community rejuvenation is but a theoretical concept. It’s a very one-sided view that speaks clearly to me of someone unfamiliar with the real streets of South LA, where mothers, fathers, ministers, teachers, teenagers, and residents of all backgrounds and beliefs are coming together with unity and vibrancy for change.

This is supposed to be a story about declining crime rates in South LA. Yet, turn to page A12 in the print edition and you’ll find a spread of pictures that suggests quite the opposite: A Mother clinging to her child at a crime scene, officers searching a man for gang tattoos, a child standing at a memorial for the victims of gang violence. Innocence and guilt, juxtaposed in black and white.

I’ve been reporting South LA for two years, and although, admittedly, I’m not a seasoned journalist or expert in the area, I’ve heard many voices that would have otherwise fallen on deaf ears in terms of mass media recognition and been to countless events integral to the community where no other reporters were present, not even those who stake the biggest claim in the city’s coverage. After just a couple of years experiencing the sights and sounds of South LA, I do not believe that a true beat reporter could have written what Gold wrote for Sunday’s LA Times. Merely following the cops and the politicians will paint a very superficial view of the area, every time.

It’s not difficult to spot the clues in the article that suggest tunnel vision. After three pages of gang talk, the LA Times provides a sidebar analysis of some of the gangs terrorizing South LA. Take a look at the numbers: how many members belong to the LA Oriental Boyz “gang”? Seven. Add the totals of the five other listed gangs, and these gangsters make up 0.005 percent of South LA’s population.

Still, the sad fact is that this is the tiny slice of South LA that sells newspapers. After all, it isn’t written for residents. It’s written for the “other” side of the city that wants to remain on the outside looking in, ironically, because of the fear perpetuated by media coverage of the infamous South Central.

The story ends with glorious condescension for those poor South LA residents who are forced to live in such a blighted part of the city. A young boy sits on his bed, with Psalm 91 hanging on the wall beside him: “No temeras el terror nocturno” - Do not fear the terror of the night. Gold ends with the boy’s words: “I want to go to a new place,” he said. “But this is where I live.”

The series is titled, “Promise and Peril in South LA.” But I can’t help but feel like something significant is missing here… the promise of “promise” remains unfulfilled. And I have to wonder: Why doesn’t the LA Times just cut to the chase and call it what it is?

“Peril in South LA.”

Tags: journalism, LA Times, media, Promise and Peril, South Central, South LA