City Times Partners with Union Tribune on Border Life
City College fall semester journalism students will write for new San Diego Union-Tribune Border Blog
Mural near Playas de Tijuana
October 5, 2017
City Times launched a new project this semester with an award winning newspaper only blocks away. “Between the Lines” or “Entre Líneas,”is a blog telling a new generation of stories from San Diego and Mexico border student journalists.
The project was the brainchild of Union-Tribune Editor in Chief Jeff Light. Light wanted to cover stories from the border using younger voices. A staffer of his referred him to Adjunct Professor of Journalism Jerry McCormick. McCormick, who at that time taught at City College and another community college in the South Bay steered Light to City College.
That was November of 2016. Since there had never been this type of partnership before, the school and the Union-Tribune had to agree on issues such as coverage and liability for the students. Dr. Trudy Gerald, the Dean of Arts and Humanities worked to finalize the deal between the school district and the paper.
“The partnership between San Diego City College and the San Diego Union-Tribune presents an incredible opportunity for our students to receive individualized support and mentorship from professionals in the digital media industry.” Gerald said, “The students will gain first-hand experience pursuing stories with a professional journalist.”
Panoramic view of Mural de le Hermandad
“I’m excited to work with my mentor from the U-T, I want to continue in print so this opportunity is a dream come true,” said the Editor-in-Chief of City Times and Legend, Shaylyn Martos. “We have such a richness of culture here in San Diego, and I think transborder lives aren’t covered as they should be in the media.”
The project will be an online blog full of detailed articles, videos and photos essays. Coverage will include the arts, culture, food, as well as breaking news. Students are eager to write about border issues through new perspectives.
Chefs Claudia Sandoval, who won the 6th season of Fox’s cooking show MasterChef, and Javier Plascencia, who has placed Tijuana on the culinary map, mentored the culinary students, as the students prepared their own dishes on the first night of the Borderless Dine & Wine event.
“I am glad we are finally going to do what the class promised us,” said City Times Art Director, Partha Ranadive. He paid nearly $300 in non-resident fees to be a part of the project last semester, before the details were finalized. “The professors had to go through a lot of challenges and bureaucratic hurdles to make this possible. However, this is progress and I am very excited for the doors this opportunity can open for us students,” he said.
“This project will give students a chance to be on the cutting edge of journalism,” McCormick said. “In addition, we hope to have enough people sign up next semester so we can have this as a separate class. So we want students with any sort of writing, journalism or creative ability not to wait to be a trailblazer in journalism.”
Carmen María’s genre is not easy to categorize.
The blog was launched the first week of October at https://borderblogcom.wordpress.com/
