Alhambra Source receives Community Advocate Award

Alhambra Source was presented Thursday night with the New America Media Community Advocate award at a ceremony at KPCC Southern California Public Radio. The 2.5-year-old local news site was selected from nearly 50 ethnic media nominees, and recognized as "a critical community platform for underserved and diverse residents in the area."

Alhambra Source was chosen based upon a story by Jesse Chang, a community organizer with Kingdom Causes, who wrote "Why is Alhambra stopping churches from housing homeless families?"

Other NAM winners included Jonah Lowenfeld from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles for his piece, "Reaction to hate speech: L.A.'s Jewish community and Pamela Geller"; Ky Phong Tran from Nguoi Viet Daily News for "Why Jeremy Lin matters";  and Araceli Martinez Ortega from La Opinion for her two-part series, "Aging Latinos with children in prison face additional financial hardships".

Five Alhambra Source stories were also selected as finalists:

• "Autism on the rise and a young mother's struggle" - Monica Luhar
• "How to make Alhambra schools safe for gay youth? Start with the teachers" - Monica Luhar
• "My Mandarin problem" - Jee-Shaun Wang
• "A new chance for undocumented youth in the SGV?" and  "A dream deferred for an Alhambra Chinese youth"
• "Saving Alhambra's youth with hard knocks" - Nathan Solis

Alhambra Source is the result of a research project directed by USC Annenberg professors Sandra Ball-Rokeach and Michael Parks, investigating how local news can better reflect community information needs, cross linguistic and ethnic barriers, and increase civic engagement. The site launched in September 2010, and since then more than 50 Alhambra residents have contributed a story and attended meetings. We always welcome new contributors — please let us know if you are interested in getting involved!