Cargoland:

KCRW Radio Focuses on the Port and San Pedro

By James Preston Allen, Publisher

It was several weeks ago that KCRW reporter Saul Gonzalez contacted me after reading one of my editorials about the TraPac terminal at the Port of Los Angeles. I was a bit taken by surprise by the call as we rarely receive much “big” LA media recognition around here, unless it’s about a cruise ship full of sick passengers or someone jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Do you remember the giant rubber duck during the festival of Tall Ships? The rubber duck was tied up just a thousand yards from where the boatload of sick passengers docked on the main channel. One report called it Port of LA and the other San Pedro. It’s hard getting any respect around here.

Gonzalez, however, was interested in something more. His questions followed along the line of what our reporters have been writing about for the past 35 years–the relationship between the ever-expanding $200 billion a year industrial port complex and what its impact is on the communities that surround it.

“Finally!” I thought. “We have some intelligent media folks who are beginning to get the nexus between the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles to the rest of the Southland in a greater context.

Gonzalez spent the better part of an hour interviewing me. I must admit that I felt a bit unprepared as he had only indicated some general areas of interest. But after covering port and community issues for more than three-and-half decades, who better to put current waterfront development in perspective to the history?

So, having said so much, I was a bit surprised when the segment aired on Tuesday, December 2 only to find that all of my pearls of wisdom had been boiled down to three sentences. Well that’s radio for you and if you’d like to take a listen to what got edited in, go to http://tinyurl.com/KCRWs-SP-Search-for-respect.

However, if you go to the website for this project at http://cargoland.kcrw.com/, there’s a lot more for those of you who have never set foot on the working side of the waterfront. There are five more longer segments on their website such as, “The Pilots: Steering ships the size of skyscrapers” and “Automation: Will Innovation Mean Fewer Jobs?.”

These and other KCRW segments do a better job of putting the waterfront in a context that the average Los Angeles reporter, politician or citizen ever gets to experience or understand.  The segment on automation should be a wakeup call to all our friends at the ILWU.

In the end, the 3:34 minute KCRW segment pairs my remarks against Councilman Joe Buscaino’s on the question, “Can the community of San Pedro in Los Angeles have both a thriving industrial port and retail and residential development on its waterfront?” That is indeed the crux of the long-term debate that Gonzalez has only just scratched the surface. It’s a question that only the Board of Harbor Commissioners and those willing to stand up for something greater than what’s proposed in the recent Ports O’ Call Feasibility Study can answer.

sses All Around