What is host city?

Host City is an independent editorial project about Los Angeles and the 2028 Olympics. We love this city, and we want to understand what an event of this size does to it, especially to the places that are fragile and the places that have been waiting a long time for an opportunity this big.

We report on the neighborhoods, the infrastructure, the leaders and brands making decisions, and the cultural memory the Games will draw on. We publish features, photo essays, interviews, and video, mostly on Substack and YouTube.

Competition and medal counts are covered well elsewhere, so we leave them out. Host City follows the bus operators being hired and trained for the Games and the hotel rates being negotiated three years out. We spend time with Inglewood residents who have already lived through one transformation and are now living through another, and we go back to the 1932 Olympic Village in Baldwin Hills to trace what has happened on that land in the decades since.

Host City has no affiliation with LA28, the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, the IOC, or any host-city government office.

Contribute to Host City

We’re building a contributor network, starting with people in Los Angeles but open to anyone with a strong idea for the publication. Right now we’re looking for:

Writers and reporters. Feature writers, beat reporters, and short-form contributors with experience in urban policy, transportation, real estate, labor, immigration, civic history, sports business, or local LA reporting.

Photojournalists. We commission single editorial frames and longer photo essays. We want photographers who work in a documentary register and are willing to spend time with a place before they shoot it.

Video creators and documentarians. We produce short videos (2 to 10 minutes) and mid-length pieces (15 to 25 minutes) for YouTube. We’re looking for people who can shoot, interview, and edit, or who can lead a small crew.

Designers and data visualizers. Editorial illustration for features, plus data visualization and the occasional map for explanatory work.

Host City pays for every commissioned piece. Rates depend on the length and complexity of the work and are agreed before it begins. We don’t run unpaid work.

How to pitch Host City

Email editor@hostcity.media with the following:

A paragraph on what you want to cover and why Host City is the place for it. Be specific. “I shot the Intuit Dome opening on assignment for X” tells us more than “I have experience in LA.”
Three to five samples of relevant work. Links, PDFs, and video URLs are all fine. Pick the pieces that best show how you work.
Three to five story ideas, two sentences each. These carry the most weight, since we commission based on ideas.