Brian Charles joined The Signal in 2008 and immediately had an impact on the paper’s quantity and quality of local reporting. By early 2009, The Signal sent him to Washington DC to cover the Inauguration of Barack Obama, and since then he’s covered crime in Santa Clarita. He’s proven to be a versatile reporter, covering everything from mysterious murders to the City Council, to local development issues.

As is the case with so many talented Signal reporters before him, Charles is moving on to a bigger newspaper but before he departs The Signal and the SCV, he agreed to answer a few questions from SCVTalk’s readers and editors.

SCVTalk:Why are you leaving The Signal?

BC:I was offered a job at the Pasadena Star-News. Of course there are financial considerations. The Star-News pays better than The Signal, but I also live in South Pasadena. I will shorten my commute and be able to cover the community I live in. Before coming to The Signal, I reported and worked in Big Bear, and it was a wonderful experience to feel that your coverage contributes to a community you lived in. I look forward to getting back to that.

SCVTalk:What kind of beat will you cover at the Pasadena paper?

BC:I will cover education at the Star-News, specifically the Pasadena Unified School District. I understands the challenges Pasadena and other communities are having with educating their children. There are plenty of topics to dig into and I am excited about the chance to to dig into these topics. I will plan to borrow heavily from The Signal’s education coverage so I plan to stay in touch with Tammy Marashlian, since she provides excellent education coverage for The Signal.

SCVTalk:Tell us about some of the more memorable stories you covered for The Signal.

BC:Of course, the Acton suicide comes to mind. It emotionally ripped that community apart. Having lived in a small town before, I know how close knit small towns are and how a tragedy can devastate those towns. I am glad that I was able to tell people’s stories without exploiting them. Or at least I hope I did in that instance.

I really enjoyed carrying The Signal banner to Washington to cover the inauguration. It was, of course, a historic moment. It was equally inspirational and I think it signaled to the community that the paper could imagine big projects and execute those big projects.

I also loved the coverage I gave to the Domestic Violence Center. It was great to see a local politician like Cameron Smyth, make change for those most in need.

SCVTalk:You were The Signal’s number one crime reporter for a time. Why do you think there are so many unsolved murders in Santa Clarita?

BC:I covered crime for nine months. I think the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is understaffed. That goes for the whole county not just the Santa Clarita Valley. The sheriff’s department resources are spread thin and until there are more resources within the Department, there will be unsolved murders here and across the county.
But I don’t want to throw this all on the sheriff’s department. Given the freeway access I would assume a lot of these murderers flee the scene without being seen. That makes any investigation tough.

SCVTalk:How does the LA County Sheriff’s Department investigate homicides in Santa Clarita?

BC:The murders are investigated from downtown Los Angeles. It would be nice to have a homicide bureau in the SCV, but when you’re a contract city, you don’t get a local homicide bureau.

SCVTalk:A long-standing rumor in Santa Clarita is that local government and/or business interests try to influence crime reporting in The Signal, usually in an effort to downplay it. Can you comment on that?

BC:During my time at The Signal I never got a call from any government agency, or business, nor did any editor tell me how to write a story. There are attempts by sources to spin a story, but that’s a dance that happens in every community in the nation. When you don’t see something in The Signal or you see thin reporting in The SIgnal, it is usually a reflection of how much verifiable information is available by the time we go to press. In some cases, it’s because we have a small staff that is working as hard as they can to gather as much news as possible, so it is inevitable that some breaking news will be missed.

SCVTalk:Sometimes it seems the local radio station gets the scoop on a crime story before the Signal does. Is that accurate, and if it is, why does that happen?

BC:That’s more of a testament to Carol Rock. She is a veteran reporter who knows how to work sources well. But I will say that comparing a radio to a newspaper is not a fair comparison. In addition to the Web, we have a 20-plus page monster to fill each day. The newspaper, as a product, requires the reporters to dig into more details than broadcast news outlets require and that includes the Internet. So KHTS might have some things first, but The Signal has more details.

SCVTalk:Two stories from the past year in crime generated a lot of interest on SCVTalk. There was a shooting in Bridgeport which was widely reported before dropping off the radar al together, and a suicide in the Sheriff’s station. Can you update us on either of those?

BC:I didn’t cover those stories and don’t have detailed knowledge of the stories.

SCVTalk:What will you miss most about working at The Signal and covering Santa Clairta?

BC:The people. During my time at The Signal, I got to work with some great people and I will miss the people I worked with the most.

SCVTalk:What’s your view of The Signal and local newspapers in general in an age where so-called old media is facing decline and blogs and social media are ascendant? What can The Signal do to remain relevant, timely and competitive?

BC: I wouldn’t say that the two are necessarily related. If you look at the number of people reading the LA Times in print and online, their circulation is actually up. The problem is not whether newspapers are relevant, it’s whether the newspaper business model will continue to work. That’s a revenue side problem and I am far from qualified to answer that question. The blogs on the other hand are offering something I think newspapers should do content-wise. Blogs offer news analysis and readers love second-day or, even better, immediate opinionated reaction to news. That’s a formula that cable news, especially Fox and MSNBC do really well. There is definitely room for The Signal to offer that style of news analysis, but whether the money is there to invest in the staff to do that is again a question I don’t know the answer to. But I will tell you that all newspapers, including The Signal keep a close eye to bloggers because it’s like dipping your toe into the pool to see how people receive what was just in the paper and what our readers are thinking.

SCVTalk:The Signal is one of a several dailies owned by Georgia-based Morris Media. Based on your knowledge and experience, does Morris exert influence in the day-to-day operations of the Signal, either editorially or from a revenue standpoint?

BC:I can’t answer questions about the revenue side, because I didn’t work on that side of the business. I’ve met Charles Hill Morris a few times and he was very supportive of what we did on the news side. As a reporter you are often so buried in your own story that you don’t really deal with the politics of how the company is run. I didn’t feel Morris dictated much of what is done day-to-day at The Signal.

SCVTalk:From your time at The Signal and covering news in Santa Clarita, what do you think are the major challenges facing this community?

BC: Growth, water, under served minority groups and the impact of Disney on the SCV.

Newhall Ranch in coming whether people like it or not. How will the city and county deal with the impacts of that development? How will the school district deal with all those new kids
Growth automatically impacts water. Will there be enough?

Considering the redevelopment efforts in Old Newhall, it’s a matter of time before the Latino population in the SCV begins to demand a seat at the table when it comes to dividing influence and power. Will they get that seat and how? Will the SCV ever considered district elections for city council seats. This is an issue I wanted to get into in 2010. I think the issue of minority representation on City Council will begin to surface in the next few years. I also think the Latino population will begin to flex its muscle in the community both economically and politically.

I also think the Disney studio could change the SCv in the ways that you detailed in your blog months ago. It’s going to inject money into the SCV and make it much more feasible to work and live in the SCV. I also think it may draw in younger families and make the SCV even more diverse.

Many thanks to Brian and we wish him the best at the Pasadena Star-News!