Willa Seidenberg | Los Angeles, CA | (213) 740-4301 | E-mail | Twitter | Website
Intersections South LA offers online news, features and resources about South Los Angeles, a region that is home to African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and immigrants. The coverage area stretches from University Park to Watts and explores quality-of-life issues including education, business, immigration, healthcare and the environment.
Intersections was founded at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism in 2009 by professors Willa Seidenberg and Bill Celis with the goal of training students to cover with depth this vibrant urban area neighboring the campus. The site also provides a platform for community members to express their own perspectives through op-eds, reported articles, photography and other media.
In the summer of 2013, Intersections launched Reporter Corps South LA, a program designed to train young adults from South LA in multimedia journalism. Intersections staff have also mentored journalism students from South LA’s Crenshaw, Dorsey, Manual Arts, Fremont, Jordan and Foshay high schools.
Project Updates
- New Mobile and Social Media Strategy (June, 2011) - In just the last six months, USC-Annenberg’s Intersections South LA, under site founder Will Seidenberg, has redesigned the website and logo and developed the use of social media and mobile news – two entirely new marketing advances for the site. And the future looks promising for the local news site. Personnel Changes With February’s resignation […]
- Zoning in on Community Engagement Drives Web Traffic Explosion for South LA Site (January, 2011) - Intersections South LA experienced a five-fold boom in traffic in late 2010, and founder Willa Seidenberg attributes the increase to a focus on engaging a smaller community. “The project began as an open-ended endeavor,” she said, with USC-Annenberg students covering a vast area with an approximate population of 750,000. Now, the team will focus on […]
- Intersections: No Stopping In Sight (May, 2010) - Intersections: The South Los Angeles Report was officially launched in May 2009, with a reception attended by university, community, educational and governmental leaders. A bare bones site went live just before the launch party. “We felt we needed to have a working site up and running in order to gain interest and credibility in the […]
- Increasing Traffic, Boosting Involvement, and Seeking Sustainability (March, 2010) - With its website live and any fancy financial footwork in its past (see November 2009 report), Intersections: The South L.A. Report is now alive and well. Quite well, in fact, reports Willa Seidenberg, the USC Annenberg professor heading up the initiative, as they have seen tremendous growth in the site’s content this quarter. “We have […]
- Addendum to first quarter J-Lab report (November, 2009) - Reported spending during our first quarter of J-Lab funding was lower than expected for two reasons. We were unaware until the summer that we were required to take a grants administrator exam for certification, as required by the grants office at the University of Southern California. We were also required to submit a much more […]
- Off to a good start (October, 2009) - Intersections: The South Los Angeles Report experienced a strong start-up year, with promise for future sustainability and growth, according to co-director Bill Celis, associate professor of journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication. So strong, team members decided to change its name from The South Los Angeles Report from The South Los Angeles Reporting […]
