California Connected Newsroom

Producer Rick Wilkinson has been on assignment throughout the world but never before had he been to Yosemite National Park.

Rick says he approaches every location with his “game eyes” on, looking for ways to tell a visual story. Eventually, he looked at Yosemite with different eyes. “As the story progresses and we get what we […]

Hot, hot, heat

OK, so you’re power went out and you’ve been spooning a 5 lb. bag of ice at night. It could be worse.
Underwater volcanoes may contribute to global warming. As does blinking, walking, talking, and thinking.
Ocean water is no refuge from the heat. Not if you’re a bird.
Next season’s RV should undergo a bio-diesel […]

Tomorrow night, California Connected will run a TV story about San Bernardino and Maywood’s divergent approaches to the issue of illegal immigration.
A first for California Connected, “Tale of Two Cities” is produced by graduates from USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, master’s journalism program.
Participants in the “News 21″ summer fellowship, which also includes graduates […]

Hal MacDermot, Researcher, explains current auto theft trends:
What is the nation’s most popular car to steal? According to the Insurance Industry, and they would know, it’s the 1995 Honda Civic. Now out of all the cars to steal in the nation, the nippy Acura, the chic Mercedes, the testosterone packed Hummer, why pick such a […]

The LA Times reports today that the San Diego housing market is showing very clear signs of strain. As one of the leading markets in the state, the paper reports, what is happening now in San Diego could be an indicator of what will happen in the rest of the state — a slowdown, a […]

Every week, radio producer Carol Gray faces the challenge of telling California Connected stories without using the hours of footage captured by our television producers. One day, we’ll get her to record a producer’s commentary about this process. Until then, compare for yourself:

Beach Blank Bingo: audio version vs. video version
Water Wars: audio version vs. video […]

What is the future of the human race? Stephen Hawking searches Yahoo! for answers when he should be watching California Connected.
Common sense backed up by scientific research: Global Warming Leads to Wildfires. (Listen to Science magazine’s podcast)
You won’t be running for cover but Caltech’s online earthquake simulator is worth checking out. For personal seismic […]

The LA Times ran a casual but in-depth story today on former California Governor Gray Davis, looking into his new job at a top-flight law firm, his home life in Los Angeles, and his political legacy following the state’s energy crisis and 2003’s recall election.
“Nobody likes change,” says the former California governor. “You can […]

Producer of “Half-Homeless,” Angela Shelley, profiles people living in parking lots.
This piece grew out of a story idea called “Two Paychecks from Poverty” about people dealing with some sort of financial meltdown — sudden job loss, spousal abandonment, uninsured illness, etc.
In the course of researching that story, we ran across the “Safe Parking […]

The Associated Press reports today that gang members across the country are using the Web to network and boast about their exploits.
Crips, Bloods, MS-13, 18th Street and others have staked claims on various corners of cyberspace. “Web bangers” are posting potentially incriminating photos of members holding guns, messages taunting other gangs and boasts of […]