The Listening Well

Welcome to LA on the Margins — USC student produced profiles of people in our community who are working through the many challenges life in the city can throw at you. In this episode we meet a reggae artist who is trying to make it in this beautiful, complicated city... and supporting his art by driving for Uber. Through reporter Yundie Li, we learn about his struggle with balancing the "city of t...

Welcome to LA on the Margins, a USC produced series that profiles Angelenos who have struggled with things like mental health, food insecurity and homelessness. In this first episode, reporter Liv Kelleher follows the journey of a young performer as he tries to “make it” in Hollywood — with a nearby Panera Bread as his office, a Planet Fitness as his shower and his car as his only home base.

LAist Studios & USC Annenberg's School of Journalism Present: How COVID Changed Everything A series where graduate students in the USC Annenberg School of Journalism examine the many ways—both dramatic and nuanced—that the pandemic has changed life in ways we are only now beginning to understand. Part 3: Acting While the pandemic caused a lot of stasis, it also inspired plenty of action. Once we a...

LAist Studios & USC Annenberg's School of Journalism Present: How COVID Changed Everything A series where graduate students in the USC Annenberg School of Journalism examine the many ways—both dramatic and nuanced—that the pandemic has changed life in ways we are only now beginning to understand. Part 2: Adapting Change is a given, but COVID-19 truly forced the hand of change. In this episode we e...

LAist Studios & USC Annenberg's School of Journalism Present: How COVID Changed Everything When the World Health Organization declared an end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency last month, it marked an over 3 year journey through the deadliest pandemic in US history. While COVID-19 may no longer be an official public health emergency, the effects it's had on every fabric of society can't be...

Qanon is a far-right extremist group that has moved out from the fringes to the forefront, gaining more faithful followers as people were isolated and online during the pandemic. The group’s presence was clear and prominent in the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. While Qanon has been tearing at the fabric of our nation, it has also been tearing individual families apart. Many sons and...

Our national story, the historical narrative taught to our children, has been at the forefront of some raging rhetoric. The issue includes how this nation teaches history, and which part of history is taught in schools. Right-wing media has raised loud objections to teaching Critical Race Theory. Many point out that the criticism over critical race theory is simply not logical and only serves to f...

Violinists Etienne Gara and YuEun Kim , fix up a VW bus, paint it candy-apple red and drive up the coast. Their goal is to bring a little music and a little joy to farmers, winemakers, and anyone else they meet along the way. They call this project MusiKaravan.  As part of our series “Divided States: Efforts to Pull Together When Things Fall Apart,” Polina Cherezova takes us along their musical jo...

More and more people have been facing real-life dangers after posting political content online.  As part of our series “Divided States: Efforts to Pull Together When Things Fall Apart,”  Elizabeth Islas introduces us to one person who has faced this danger. A teenager on TikTok. This 17-year-old TikTok creator has nearly 300,000 followers and built social media fame by creating political content....

With the pandemic, came a rise in anti-Asian violence and hate crimes, largely sparked by political rhetoric. Now, members of the Asian American community have been coming together in efforts to fight back ... and break away from the perceived tradition of enduring, stoically and silently.  As part of our series “Divided States: Efforts to Pull Together When Things Fall Apart,” reporter Christine...

One Southern California county, that was once a conservative bastion, has become a political battleground. We're talking about Orange County, California, the GOP stronghold for much of the last century. There, a new political culture has been taking shape. As part of our series "Divided States: Efforts to Pull Together When things Fall Apart," reporter J.P. Dabu takes us into this now purple regio...

Delano is the historic farming town in central California that the late Cesar Chavez called home. It is known as the cradle of Latino civil rights and social justice movements and the home-base of the United Farmworkers Union. But now, it is also home to two prisons and growing gang violence, meaning the town has turned into a place that is far from sacred. As part of our series “Divided States: E...

Each story straddles time ... from before pandemic ... to after. We examine grief in a time of isolation. We explore the arts world's pivot as everything shuts down. We look at efforts to keep a roof overhead as the economy collapses. And we consider whether all this time in isolation might, at some point, help bring us closer together. Welcome to "The Listening Well" where we go deep on one subje...

What does grief look and feel like in this devastating moment in history? With the pace and scale of lives lost during the coronavirus pandemic, many people have been and will be facing grief together ... all at the same time. But also alone ... in quiet isolation.  How do we mourn, remember, and move forward  amidst all of the uncertainty, isolated and online? In our series "Living and Grieving i...

Experts are predicting an "avalanche of evictions" in the economic shock from the coronavirus pandemic.  In our series "Living and Grieving in a Time of Covid 19" each story straddles time ... from before pandemic ... to after.  In this episode, reporter Nancy Guan tells us about one group of tenants near downtown Los Angeles who started fighting months before the pandemic began to prevent rent in...

The experience of the arts … even online … has been like oxygen for a lot of people locked in at home. Just before the pandemic hit … one innovative performance group was pushing the boundaries … bringing the experience of live, in person theater to a whole new level. They used an ethereal outdoor performance near downtown Los Angeles to breathe new life into a buried history. That is, until the p...

Researchers identify links between loneliness and chronic illness leading to a shortened life-span.  And now, in the current climate, many people are enduring loneliness on an even deeper level. As part of our series "Living and Grieving in a Time of Covid 19," reporter Isaiah Murtaugh presents this audio diary. As stay-at-home orders went into effect, he pressed record ...  

Several of the most destructive wildfires in California history erupted over the last three years. Tens of thousands of homes went up in flames. Millions of acres burned. For some, their sense of home shifted or just disappeared. For others living nearby, anxiety rises in anticipation of the next wildfire and the connection to the growing climate crisis. As part of  our series "Home: Unsettled," M...

We are exploring what it means to be at home, to feel at home, in times that can be so unsettling. Ever heard of the Ellis Act? It’s a housing law that allows California landlords to evict rent-controlled tenants by shutting down the property all together. This controversial law has led to nightmare situations for tenants around Los Angeles who are suddenly left without a home. As part of our seri...

When it comes to the film industry, women have had a hard time even finding a home. Men dominate nearly every aspect of filmmaking.  For the first time in its nearly hundred year history, one of the nation's top film schools features a production with the entire film crew being all women and gender non-conforming.  As part of our series "Home: Unsettled," Reporter Cate Young gives us a behind the...