Fri, May 06 2005

Reporting From The Outside In

Gustavo Arellano says that out-of-town newspapers who send journalists to cover Orange County (California) stories just don't get it right a lot of the time. That's probably very true. I've never lived in Orange County full-time, but I have had a few extended stays there. It's easy to miss the nuances of the place. It's seen by many outsiders as a weird mix of Los Angeles ex-patriots and Disneyland employees. You have to meet a lot of people and watch a lot of everyday life there to get a feel for the true underpinnings of Orange County. It does have a mix of cultures, but the intrigue for me is in seeing how the various cultures and communities feed off one another's strenghths and weaknesses. They seem to know the score when it comes to ethnic and economic inequities. But they play along anyway, because the mechanism meets some of the basic needs for everyone there. This doesn't mean they don't have terrible problems. They just seem to be willing to live there anyway. They buckle down and do what they need to do to get by and then nestle down in their respective quarters at night in the midst of all the political ironies and contradictions that cloak it all. I have a feeling that they exchange a sort of secret look when outside journalists come to snoop. Oh, they'll let them kick the tires and peek under the hood a little. But only the insiders know how that baby really runs.

posted at: 08:56 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry