A June 8 PBS MediaShift article featured USC Annenberg student media sites Neon Tommy and Intersections South LA for their contributions to the local community.
"Some sites are 24/7 operations covering national and metro news, such as USC Annenberg's NeonTommy.com, which attracts some 270,000 unique visitors a month," the article stated.
The article noted that Neon Tommy is a finalist for 16 LA Press Club Awards, and competes against major media outlets in the Los Angeles area. Intersections South LA is a community news website dedicated to covering South Los Angeles and surrounding areas, with contributions from residents, high school students and USC Annenberg journalism students. The article noted that journalism professor Willa Seidenberg sends Intersections writers a weekly email with story ideas to help with the idea-generation process. With competition for support, Intersections, which covers a diverse and poor community abutting the university, may soon be wrapped into a Community News Program, although Seidenberg is working to keep it going.
"Students are really the (beneficiaries) of the site," she said. "It's changed the culture of the school and increased the amount of reporting done in South L.A."
