The Garment and Citizen was a local community paper like no other, it really was a true community paper. It focused on serving the residents. The paper began in March 2000 as a small newsletter style publication. At a time of falling newspaper sales and some could say a fractured disparate society it had little chance of success.
An initial circulation of three thousand grew steadily and so did the format. It morphed in to a classic tabloid paper. This transformation in format marked the beginning of Garment and Citizen as a real paper for some people, but for the community it was already fixed as the real deal. The paper served the community with distinction for ten years and the circulation grew to ten thousand despite the unprecedented financial turmoil in the world.
The paper served downtown Los Angeles and areas like Echo Park, Little Tokyo, Chinatown, the Arts District and some other parts of south LA. Anyone who knows the landscape of Los Angeles can tell you that is a varied readership in terms of language, culture and ethnicity.
The paper was produced in English but was very much focused on the life of different cultures in LA. It aimed – and succeeded – in helping immigrants become part of the community. To understand the nature of the city and how they should integrate themselves. This was not in the form of how to articles, but more in its approach to reporting and the topics the paper chose to cover.
The paper sought to understand the difficulties that immigrants and first generation Americans faced when coming to a new country, never mind one as chaotic as Los Angeles. LA has become a Mecca for immigration in America and is facing similar issues to New York one hundred years ago. The Garment & Citizen was determined to help foster an inclusive community, to not just report on the community but also become part of that community.
The paper realized that the community was unique and chose to produce a community paper or journal that factored in this level of diversity. The paper and its writers seemed to enjoy and embrace this diversity and truly believe it could help build a stronger America. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the country you have a mass of immigrants in Los Angeles from Hispanics, Africans, Asian, Russian, Eastern European and the Middle East. Often people from the same continent bring with them tensions towards each other’s race and that takes time and understanding to dissipate. These immigrants need time and help to assimilate into our culture and the Garment and Citizen was an important conduit to that. The fact that it was consumed by so many races lays testament to this.
The paper continuously recounted the difficulties faced by immigrants and was quick to highlight the many success stories. Los Angeles has been shown in the Census to be one of the most ethnic diverse cities in the US and the catchment area of the Garment and Citizen is probably the most diverse in Los Angeles. This diversity can cause fractured society particularly if the media uses this diversity to whip up feeling and drive sales. Garment and Citizen did the opposite it chose to celebrate the positives and tried to promote the community and show that no race was more important than the other. In fact the paper often illustrated how one race came to depend on the other as was the case in the chef training crisis and the regulation of online paid surveys. This makes the paper sound overtly political which it wasn’t. It ran features and news like most papers and little classified ads selling used macbook and payday loans and other used products. There were also useful articles on how to find ancestors if you are into ancestor hunting as well as how to get pregnant in your forties. It also gave its skilled views on what has happening in the district and its opinions on how this would impact the residents. It would take time to aim pieces at different sectors of the community and explaining how situations in one community almost always impacts on another part of the community, so that tensions did not rise like DUI laws. It’s this sort of analysis and social responsibility that made Garment and Citizen much loved and some people were working on cell phone accessories that would take you straight to the internet site.
The paper was not just loved by its readership it also was award winning and it gained recognition from the community and some unexpected sources even those who promoted electronic cigarettes. The paper’s editor Jerry Sullivan, who was a great raconteur, was much loved by the community and his writing was always forthright without a hint of sensationalism even when under pressure from the car insurance quotes industry or the guys from cheap car insurance even though they often paid with a prepaid credit card. His commentary column twice won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association which was sponsored by consolidate debt. The same column also won recognition on a national level from New American Media which is not bad for a local small community paper who relied on life insurance quotes and free iPhone advertising. Unfortunately any business that relied on advertising was going to suffer in the slow down so less breitling watches and Siemens appliances would be purchased, although Iphone 5 demand stayed high and even the best managers will have some panic away in the economic turmoil that we all were part of which was like a fat burning furnace of cost shedding for most businesses and advertising is an easy expense to kill which is why many people looked to cut back on solicitors indemnity insurance rather than advertising their contractor accountants. Working in that type of environment like newspaper advertising can be stressful and you need to know the best wrinkle creams if you are going to look even remotely normal especially after the inevitable hair loss treatment for men you will suffer. Respect for the newspapers came from all, and sometimes unexpected even bad credit car loans, and places like the krill oil and stretch mark cream producers. Jerry Sullivan was asked to read out one of his commentary on iPhone deals pieces out at the graduation of the Los Angeles police Department which would not have happened if he worked for carpet cleaning london or an acne treatment institution. This is interesting as most newspapers have an uneasy peace, with the police yet Sullivan was able to applaud and occasionally rebuke the police yet remain sql performance tuning respected by the LAPD and the readership and balancing those scales is extremely difficult and skilled in terms of a honest reporting stand point especially if you don’t want to spend hours staring at PC monitors displaying the latest cheap auto insurance prices. When the paper announced it was closing after ten years, obviously all the office chairs had to go and far to late for a payday loan for the employees, the paper and Sullivan were also lauded by Lucille Roybal-Allard House of Representatives member and was awarded with a certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for its services to the community, he will have sucked on a electronic cigarette after that no doubt. Some will say the paper failed because it closed its doors and did not have NCLEX exam questions to advertise but it is obvious that it did not fail, just its star did not burn as brightly as perhaps we, or the paper, would have liked it to. Advertising was it’s downfall although debt management companies were advertising strongly others like discount new cars were not so aggressive although accident claims was pretty consistent.The paper relied on its advertisers for revenue but as the economy began to sink so did many of the advertisers even the one’s advertising car insurance quotes online and file cabinets which you would have thought was recession proof like the best wrinkle cream. Many businesses closed and those that didn’t reduce their advertising spend and garment and citizen was collateral damage, the guys from buy wow gold slashed seventy percent from their discount codes budget and the specialty store that sold Lego pirates of the Caribbean sets and dr who character building stopped completely, in fact they could probably have done with a payday advance like their advertisers offered, I don’t suppose the carpet cleaning would have helped much at that stage as they needed experts on instant payday loans or even better still a life cover provider or someone to bail them out. The paper is just another victim of the payday loans online downturn, just like the local lift company, or fitted wardrobes London manufacturers, my thoughts are not for the wartol writers and employees of the paper for they will undoubtedly find gainful employment elsewhere and not need a bankruptcy attorney or a car insurance company. Their skills will see to that although their auto loans may need to be postponed as well as their ability to buy stocks, only joking guys. Newspapers are having the same struggles as other businesses needing a scholarships for women for their lack of sales, other than the ones like send load to Philippines whose model is based on saving money, hit by reduced spending like my friend from the wedding photographers in Kent, they have been hit because people have put off getting married which in turn hits sales of kefir grains which then hits mobile phone accessories it’s just a massive chain reaction. The real losers are the community who will miss the papers efforts at understanding without ever having a hint of patronization, plus the free HCG drops and not forgetting important debates on health insurance and buy backlinks. Sullivan is of the belief that once the economy improves newspapers will survive and flourish, I’m not so sure especially with so many suffering and having to handle computer support. If papers like Garment and Citizen cannot survive, without drastic weight loss dieting of their expenditure so they can no longer operate, our cultural landscape and local communities will suffer, they will plummet. We need more things to draw the community together not less and more establishments to bring visitors in to the community and refresh the economy so we don’t have to rely on payday loan consolidation and then my buddy the wedding photographers in London can start getting back on track I thought Ms Roybal-Allard spoke very well about the paper saying it will leave a void not easily filled as it reported downtown stories that did not get mentioned in other media and didn’t care less about the 20th anniversary gifts or christening plates for local residents they wanted real issues that mattered, not articles on the diet solution program, which is what people from the lake district love. She mentioned how he (Sullivan) was sure to be inclusive of his diverse readership and was quick to applaud the efforts and achievements of the residents and businesses, he was also like an early alarm monitoring for serious issues in the wider ppi community, even those who were obsessed with the truth about abs. The paper also gave the community a voice to offer out their opinions. Jerry Sullivan will be missed, as well as being an accomplished writer and thinker he is a larger than life character who can now sit back and relax a little in his wicker furniture although we are sure that won’t be for long before he gets on to some crusade perhaps about ppi claims next time or more likely the intrusion of reverse email lookup. One thing he won’t be doing is tying up those running shoes and pounding the streets, the only pounding he will be doing is of the intellectual type chewing the cud with friends. He continues to have great faith in the newspaper industry and continues to hold great hope for communities working together. He has analyzed the papers success and failures and has wrote about his findings. I will not reproduce them verbatim but I will give you a flavor of some of them. As usual Jerry focused on the positives looking at what he and the paper did right. He said he would do these things again. He would keep an open mind and focus on the community’s needs rather than that of the paper. He would report from everyone’s point of view, he understands everyone has a different truth, even a DUI attorney and they can all be right from their standpoint but try to get people to understand this and how they inter rely on each other. He would continue to understand that readers are intelligent and that advertisers are not cash cows but important members of the community. The paper would not be afraid to show people when they were wrong no matter what group they are from or even if they are advertisers. He would treat illegal’s the same as any American citizen. He believes being civil and not preaching are both very important. The letters to the editor should cover various points and be truly open a voice for everyone no matter what your personal views are. Rebuking the police when required but at the same time applauding them for the amazing job they do. Keeping the dreams of artists like poets alive by publishing their work even if they are not full time writers. He would continue to welcome new residents to the area but caution new residents that they have to assimilate into the culture. But perhaps most of all he would continue to highlight the real heroes in our society, the unsung one’s who go to work and support their families every day.
The Garment and Citizen was a great success, I mourn its passing while celebrating its life. Thank you G & C, we won’t see your like again.