Better Know 'SoCal Minds'

Welcome back to 'Better Know a SoCal Blogger' on KCET.org! Every week we will be featuring one of the city's many fascinating and first-rate blogs. This week we are speaking with Craig Matsuda of SoCal Minds, a blogger focusing on Southern California's most "intriguing research, ideas, activity, [and] people."

The Basics:

The Lowdown:

So, what's your blog about?
It's a search for intelligent life in Southern California --it brings you word about intriguing research, ideas, activities, events and people found at the myriad of
universities, colleges, think tanks and cultural and intellectual institutions

Why did you decide to start blogging?
To prove I could; to see if content counts in cyberspace.

And who is your ideal reader?
Smart, engaged, engaging folks with a sense of curiosity, humor and balance.

Can you explain your decision to deal exclusively with Southern California research institutions?
As someone who spent a career in
fact-based mainstream media, I'm not great at overt opinionizing. I
didn't want to tell you what I think; I'll save that for good friends
at the bar. I did want to tell about folks who are doing amazing,
long, hard work -- in labs, classrooms, libraries, practice rooms --
digging out stuff, analyzing and testing it and presenting it to the
world for civil consideration and discussion. Their efforts are
provable, arguable in fact; they often undergo stringent peer review
before they publish. The institutions take great efforts, by hiring
some talented journalists, to present information in clear, compelling
ways. It's all stuff of great value, usefulness to the public
discourse.

SoCal Minds performs the commendable service of providing broader context for
newsworthy events. Do you believe other journalistic outlets do not
adequately address the larger issues at stake when--for example--two
journalists are returned from North Korea?
Honey, they shrunk my
media. That's what I fear and feel too often when I see the products
of the craft I've worked in for a career. It's tough. So I hope my
tiny effort can help those who wish to put the news into context for
themselves; they can get the expertise, research, detail and depth
that will really make daily events make more sense by tapping into
these terrific institutions of knowledge. And, by the way, many of
them, they're paying for with their tax dollars.

Conversely, do you ever find yourself frustrated with a lack of research in
an area that you personally consider worthy of investigation?
I'm rarely frustrated on this account; there's so much intriguing stuff to
wander through and wonder about, why be unhappy?

You deal with the research findings of both privately-funded
Think Tanks and Public Universities. Do you
prefer one to the other?
I'm glad and grateful we've got both public and private research going
on and that they find their own unique approaches and funders.

Ever wonder where these blog posts come from? Craig does the majority of his writing here:

Everyone has on opinion on if journalism is dying. Do blogs have anything to do with that?
Journalism, I hope, is changing its delivery method and finding a new business model after a catastrophic collision of new technologies, bad industry choices and leadership and a dire need to maintain traditional news values in confusing, uncertain times. Blogs have great merits of their own; some add journalistic value--that's just not the aim of many.

Can you give us an example of a L.A. Blog that does add journalistic value?
I'm afraid I'm addicted to LAObserved, but I'm learning daily about
the great stuff out there onChance of Rain,
Zester Daily,
and many, many more.....

And lastly, what's your favorite thing to do in L.A., outside of cyberspace?
I love encountering all the different people, cultures, ideas, experiences that coalesce and clash in the Southland. Everyone knows these, good and bad

We'd like to thank Craig again for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. When you are looking for a quick intellectual fix, click on over to SoCal Minds, a fantastic source of SoCal insights. For more about think tanks and research institutions, check out our own Jeremy Rosenberg, who blogs for KCET at Think Tank LA.