Carolina A. Miranda is Named Arts and Urban Design Columnist for the Los Angeles Times

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Los Angeles Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine made the following announcement.

Carolina A. Miranda has been appointed arts and urban design columnist for The Times.

In her new role, Miranda will cover art, architecture, urban development and design, with a particular focus on equity, access, and the lived experience of Los Angeles for all of its residents. Miranda will approach this work with a columnist’s voice and critic’s viewpoint in addition to her unending reporter’s curiosity. Along with regular reported columns and perspective pieces, Miranda will continue to write occasional features and interviews, keeping an eye throughout on who gets arts and architecture commissions and what gets made. She will also continue to seek out new artists and subcultures.

Miranda’s debut column, “Are Art Museums Still Racist?”, is an examination of how museums have responded to the COVID crisis and the questions about systemic racism raised this summer in the wake of George Floyd’s killing; it looks at whether 2020 has worsened inequities or could prompt change. It was published online this morning, and will front Sunday Calendar this weekend.

Since coming to The Times as an arts staff writer in 2014, Miranda has distinguished herself with reports on the intersections of art and race as well as art and gentrification, plus institutional change at museums and galleries. Her weekly Essential Arts newsletter has become required reading. Some of her most memorable stories examined the made-up Hollywood persona of songstress Yma Sumac, the life of TV astrologer Walter Mercado, the complexities of TV narco novelas, the cultural history of Los Angeles’ porn theaters, her recent series on public monuments and an in-depth look at the dangers of the Latino culture vacuum after the last year’s shootings in El Paso.

In 2017, Miranda was named a winner of the $50,000 Rabkin Prize in Visual Arts Journalism. She has also received awards from the L.A. Press Club and the Society for Features Journalism. Earlier this month she was named one of the most influential Latina journalists by CCNMA: Latino Journalists of California.

Miranda has been a contributor to KCRW’s “Press Play” and was a key member of the committee that helped establish the Los Angeles Times Guild and its first contract with the paper. She served as founding co-chair of the union and is currently an at-large officer.

Prior to joining The Times, Miranda was an independent magazine writer and was a contributing art critic at New York Public Radio sister stations WNYC and WQXR. She also produced reports for NPR’s All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and PRI’s Studio 360. During her time as a general assignment reporter at TIME, she covered culture, education and social issues, and was part of the team that broke the news of irregularities in FEMA director Michael Brown’s resume in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A graduate of Smith College, she was named a fellow in the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program in 2008 and 2011.

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