Supporting Student Media

Most schools have a journalism department.  They have professors who are renowned journalists, teaching lecture classes of eager students who are equally eager to get into the journalism field.  Internship programs are offered and they’re competitive.

But even though UCLA is one of the largest and most well known universities in the world, with record 55,000 freshmen applicants a year, we don’t have a journalism major, department, or program.

Thus UCLA Student Media was created to give students hands on experience on writing, reporting, editing, designing, and producing a real live publication. Over the years, we have expanded to include a daily newspaper (Daily Bruin), a radio station (UCLA Radio), 7 newsmagazines (Al-Talib, Fem, Ha’am, La Gente, Nommo, OutWrite, and Pacific Ties), and a yearbook (Bruin Life).

But as the economy turned sour, the funding for these programs were the first to get cut.  And it’s unfortunate because our only mission is to serve the campus community, to inform and to educate.  So I want to ask you to take this very short survey to reaffirm our importance in the UCLA community.  Thanks for your continuous support.

Click here to take the Student Media Survey

Cool API cartoonist: Deb Aoki

Deb Aoki offers a lighthearted look on life as an Asian Pacific Islander American. Check out more of Aoki's work on http://www.debaoki.com.

I love the comics section of the LA Times, except for one thing: the dearth of cartoon heroes of color.

I appreciate the inclusion of Jump Start, Frazz, and La Cucaracha, which acknowledge the presence of African Americans and Latino Americans in our society.  However, the majority of human comic strip characters are white.  And where, may I ask, are our Asian Pacific Islander (API) and Native American cartoon heroes?

In the February/March issue of Audrey Magazine, I first discovered Deb Aoki’s Bento Box, a cartoon featured in The Honolulu Advertiser.  Deb Aoki is a 3rd generation Japanese/Okinawan American woman who was born and raised in Honolulu and now lives in California.

It is so refreshing to see a comic strip written and illustrated by an API woman.  Her content is a nice mix of the joys and hassles of everyday life, cultural differences between Hawaii and “the mainland,” and a lighthearted look at API identity issues.  I especially appreciate that Aoki portrays her character as an everyday person and refrains from perpetuating API stereotypes.

The inclusion of more ethnically diverse comic strip characters in our national newspapers would be extremely beneficial to our society.  It would debunk stereotypes and affirm ethnic minorities of their presence and value in American culture.

– posted by Debbie Chong