Ethnic Media Probe Air Pollution in California
 Riverside, Calif. – Residents of Mira Loma Village claim air pollution harms their health. In March 2007, a group of ethnic media journalists went to investigate.
Rachel Lopez, an activist for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, led a group of reporters on a tour of Mira Loma, a community east of Los Angeles with some of the worst air quality in the United States. The visitors spoke with residents at Mira Loma Village, 101 homes surrounded by warehouses and an auto transfer storage yard fed by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The residents want to block more warehouses and trucks, which they say are sullying the air and posing danger on their roads.
The visit was part of a two-day workshop on air quality for ethnic media in California organized by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and sponsored by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Read the March 26 story>
 Information about the Program
Reporters, producers and editors from California’s ethnic media are invited to apply for a two-day workshop on coverage of air pollution that will take place March 1 to 3 at the University of California-Riverside. Up to 20 journalists from Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley will be accepted into the program, which will pay for their transportation, lodging and expenses. The workshop is organized by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), in partnership with New America Media (NAM), with the generous support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Modeled after a similar program in November 2005 at Long Beach, CA for Latino journalists, this workshop will offer training on air pollution to journalists from ethnic media that serve Latinos, Asians, African-Americans and other “new constituencies” in Southern California. These minority communities often are disproportionately affected by poor air quality. The Riverside workshop will focus mainly on pollution that plagues the basin stretching east from Los Angeles to Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino counties. The program is designed to help journalists from there, as well as from the San Joaquin Valley, San Diego and the Imperial Valley to acquire the knowledge and understanding to cover local air pollution stories adequately and professionally, from tracing pollution to its sources to explaining its health risks and proposed solutions.
The workshop will feature leading experts such as Curtis Moore, editor-publisher of Health & Clean Air Newsletter, veteran environmental journalists such as David Danelski of the Riverside Press-Enterprise, community organizers, air quality regulators and medical health researchers. It will include a field trip to a polluted area and discussion of techniques used by prize-winning reporters.
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More Information
Read more information about the program by clicking here.
Contact Us
Ms. Ting Wang,
Program Officer
International Center for Journalists
Phone: (202) 349-7602; e-mail: twang@icfj.org
Mr. Julian Do
New America Media
Phone: (714) 366-6669; e-mail: jdo@newamericamedia.org
2005 Program
Read about the 2005 Program in English
Lee información acerca del programa del año 2005 en Español |
