If you haven’t read anything by Julissa James, you should, you really should. But first, let me tell you how I chose her writing.
As I came up with the list of journalists I wanted to highlight in this series, it dawned on me that none of them were black or even people of color. When I became a fan, or when I recognized that I was a fan of journalism in my late teens, early twenties, even up until now, I never really realized their absence. It actually took me composing this list for it to register.
Maybe that’s because I didn’t grow up with a lack of black journalists on my TV screen, I mean at least at the local news level. There seemed to be at least one black person on every news station. However, when it came to the big gets, those primetime interviews done with newsmakers that had the whole country weighing in the next day, those were usually conducted by white journalists.
There may be more examples, but I can only think of two instances when that did not occur: Connie Chung interviewing Gary Condit and Oprah Winfrey interviewing Michael Jackson.
Speaking of Oprah, you may be wondering why she hasn’t made it on the list. Well that’s simply because I never really thought of Oprah as a journalist. She was a talk show host, which I associated more with entertainment rather than journalism. In spite of her profession, however, I’m not sure if Oprah would have made the list even if she was a network news journalist. Sure, she can conduct a good interview, but Oprah cuts people off so, I don’t think I could add her.
I remember this one time during the Michael Jackson interview, I can’t even remember the question right now, but Michael was giving a very thoughtful, insightful answer, and she cut him off in the middle of it to ask something else. I thought, No, let him finish. Let him finish. Unfortunately, when he started speaking again, he went on to another thought. Obviously, there are times when an interviewer must butt in, but it should only be under circumstances in which your interruption will illicit a better answer than what the subject was already saying. Journalism or not, however, Oprah remains one of the most influential people in my life period, like right behind Jesus and my family and social environment, Oprah is it.
I said all that to say, in part, that you can’t be influenced by what you don’t see. Today it’s a little different. Those types of interviews that happened a decade and beyond ago, don’t really happen anymore for several reasons. One, the prevalence of social media has neutralized the big primetime interview as it has so many other media mainstays of old. So those type of interviews aren’t really being done anymore at all. And when they are, in the case of say Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, turns out that Oprah is the blast from the past still trusted to get the job done.
As such I had to make a conscious effort to include a black journalist into the mix, as they were not on the tip of my tongue. Then, I thought of someone. Not too long ago, I heard about Bruce’s Beach, a beachfront resort owned and bought by blacks for blacks back in the 1920s, I believe, that was later taken away by the city due to racism, was now being returned to the family of those owners. As I was looking into that story, I came across another story about black people in Manhattan Beach: two surfers being harassed by racists while they practiced their sport in the water.
I just loved the writer’s opening sentence: “Ask a local surfer in Manhattan Beach about “the incident” on Presidents Day, and people will know exactly what you’re talking about.” It’s the perfect mix of informative yet mysterious that makes you want to read on. So I did, and was not disappointed. I liked it so much that I read every article by her that I could, that is before I ran into the Los Angeles Times’ paywall. It wasn’t just her writing style but the types of stories that she did – stories that highlight the culture and interests of minorities in the city.
Finally, I was intrigued by the fact that she went to California State University, Dominguez Hills. As someone who was born and raised in L.A. and also went to a Cal State, I’m well aware that going to a Cal State is not viewed as prestigious as going to a UC (UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Davis etc). And back when I was applying to colleges, Dominguez Hills was considered to be one of the worse Cal States you could go to. Other kids would liken it to going to a junior college, or tease that it was like a fifth year of high school. It’s been almost a quarter of a century since I graduated from high school, so I don’t know whether or not that stigma is still a thing. However, the fact that she came from a school that back in my day was not prestigious and ended up at a newspaper that’s thought to be, was fascinating to me. Though all one has to do is simply read her writing to see that it is she who adds sophistication to the paper. How could I not be influenced by that?
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