Telling the city's story

Five weeks in and five weeks to go. At the halfway point in my internship, I have cleared myself of all of my projects and fluff stories, taken a stab at homicides, fires, courts and obits and now have to muster up the energy to find positive enterprise stories in a negatively portrayed city.

Oakland is promising. I love this city. I never really came to Oakland because of all the bad press it receives. I'm from San Francisco. A mere trip across the Bay Bridge would have given me the opportunity to see it for myself. But now that I roam the streets I see how shallow my perception was. The climbing homicide rate doesn't correlate with the artistic ventures Oakland contains. This place is a gem for the arts, black culture and history. It is simply the infrastructure of the city that weakens its people. This city is a rare place in America. Northern California black culture is defined in Oakland, and the same can be said of the West Coast. Now that I'm done with the basics, I can focus on expressing the culture, a true journalist's job.

-- Zuri Berry, California State University-Chico, The Oakland (Calif.) Tribune