Mercedes Bermudez
Staff Writer

Gary Polakovic, a Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, spoke to Monica Valencia’s Journalism 100 class last week.

“I never was a teacher but I always wanted to do this,” said Polakovic, an environmental reporter and former editor for the Times outdoors section.

Valencia, a part-time instructor here, had distributed three articles edited by Polakovic for her students to review prior to the talk.

Polakovic addressed student questions and talked to the class about what makes a good story.

“I hate to write but love the written word,” Polakovic told the students. “I’m not a natural at writing; it took a lot of help in college to become the writer I am now.”

Polakovic instructed the students to close their eyes as he read them a passage from “Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck. This exercise, he explained, illustrated “the power to create a scene.”

The students clearly enjoyed his presentation.

“I loved how he addressed us by our name,” sophomore communications major Lauren Reed said. “I felt respected and professional.”

Polakovic graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 1984 with a degree in specialized communication and environmental science, and a minor in political science.

He has worked as a reporter and editor for more than 20 years. He began his journalism career in 1984 as a feature writer for the Record-Searchlight newspaper in Northern California before joining the San Bernardino Sun newspaper, where he started the paper's first full-time environment beat in 1985. He worked at the Los Angeles Times as an environmental writer from 1998 to 2002 and then as assistant editor for the outdoors section from 2003 to 2005.

He currently works as a senior writer on the Los Angeles Times growth and development team, which covers trends in urbanization in California and the West. Polakovic won a Pulitzer Prize in 2004 with a team of Times reporters. He was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 with another team of Times reporters, and won a science writing award from a branch of the National Academy of Sciences in 2002.

Mercedes Bermudez can be reached at mbermudez @ulv.edu.