UCLA Blueprint

University of California, Los Angeles · Government and Community Relations / UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs · Los Angeles, California, USA

Overview

UCLA Blueprint is a public affairs magazine produced by the University of California, Los Angeles, published in print and online at blueprint.ucla.edu. Founded in spring 2015 and launched with its inaugural issue in June of that year, Blueprint is edited by Jim Newton — a twenty-five-year veteran of the Los Angeles Times who served as its editorial page editor from 2007 to 2010 and is a lecturer in Communication Studies and Public Policy at UCLA — and staffed primarily by journalists drawn from the Times and the Associated Press. The magazine is a joint initiative of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and UCLA External Affairs (Government and Community Relations), whose public outreach programmes facilitate the university's role in addressing the most pressing challenges facing the region and state. Blueprint describes its mission succinctly: "journalism with purpose." Its founding editor puts it in more diagnostic terms: "The poison in each case is politics. The antidote is research."

Blueprint is not an academic journal. It is a magazine — designed by the Orange County and Portland-based firm Rent Control, illustrated with striking original artwork, and written by experienced reporters rather than academics. Its role, as Newton articulated in the inaugural issue, is "to explain academic work, suggest ideas for change and engage readers and leaders in a conversation about how to tackle the most pressing problems of this region and state." The magazine targets civic leaders, elected officials, policymakers, community advocates, academics, and engaged members of the public in Los Angeles and across California, and is freely accessible online. Its launch event — held on the UCLA Chancellor's Residence grounds — drew the Los Angeles mayor, the former California governor, the city's district attorney, the LAPD chief, city council members, and a wide circle of civic figures, establishing from the outset that Blueprint would operate in the zone where academic research and political power actually intersect.

History and Founding

Blueprint's founding was a direct consequence of Jim Newton's move from the Los Angeles Times to UCLA in early 2015. Newton had spent twenty-five years at the Times and had written three critically acclaimed biographies of Earl Warren, Dwight Eisenhower, and — with Leon Panetta — a Washington memoir. When he came to UCLA to teach, he brought with him the conviction that Los Angeles and California were profoundly under-served by any publication that systematically connected the university's research capacity to the practical questions facing the region's governments and communities. UCLA had extensive relevant expertise — in criminology, public health, urban planning, environmental science, economics, education policy, and much more — that was largely inaccessible to the policymakers and civic leaders who most needed it. Blueprint was the mechanism Newton proposed to close that gap.

The inaugural issue, published in June 2015 and focused on criminal justice and public safety, set the template that has defined Blueprint since: a thematic structure around a major policy domain; the work of UCLA researchers presented in accessible journalistic prose rather than academic language; interviews with significant practitioners and decision-makers — in that first issue, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, California Attorney General Kamala Harris, and psychologist Philip Atiba Goff on the measurement of racial bias in policing; and original illustration and photography commissioned specifically for the magazine. The senior editor who shaped the editorial execution from the beginning has been Richard E. Meyer, Newton's colleague for more than twenty years at the Times and before that a White House correspondent and national features writer at the Associated Press — a pairing of complementary editorial experience that gives Blueprint its characteristic blend of civic ambition and journalistic craft.

Coverage and Content

Blueprint is organised thematically, with each issue built around a central policy domain. Topics covered across its ten-year run include: criminal justice reform and policing; economic and social inequality; housing affordability and the homelessness crisis; climate change and environmental policy; transportation and infrastructure; immigration; education; public health; democratic participation and political discourse; water policy; and the social and economic impact of major events including the COVID-19 pandemic and the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Coverage draws on UCLA faculty research from across the institution — the Luskin School of Public Affairs, the School of Law, the Fielding School of Public Health, the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, the Anderson School of Management, and other units — and contextualises that research with reporting on how policy is actually made in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Regular features alongside the thematic long-form journalism include conversations between Newton and significant California and federal policy figures, published in print and as podcast audio. Recent examples include Newton's interview with Senator Alex Padilla about the senator's confrontation with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's security personnel in 2025; coverage of UCLA's climate policy research in the wake of the Los Angeles fires; and reporting on the politics of affordable housing. The magazine has consistently covered the intersection of state-level research and the realities of governance at a granular level that distinguishes it from national policy publications operating at a higher altitude of abstraction.

Staff and Contributors

Blueprint's editorial operations are lean by design. The core staff consists of Newton as editor-in-chief, Richard E. Meyer as senior editor, and a copy chief and project manager. The contributing writer pool is made up primarily of experienced Los Angeles-based journalists — among them Robert Greene, Lisa Fung, Jean Merl, and Jon Regardie — with domain expertise in California government, criminal justice, environment, and urban affairs. Photographs are produced by Iris Schneider; design and visual identity are the work of Rent Control. Elizabeth Boatright-Simon oversees the strategic communications and public outreach dimensions of the magazine's work within UCLA's External Affairs structure, managing partnerships that extend Blueprint's reach among policymakers, institutional leaders, and the general public. The magazine is published under UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk and under the Vice Chancellor for External Affairs.

Access and Usage

Blueprint is freely available in full online at blueprint.ucla.edu, where all issues and individual articles are searchable and accessible without registration or paywall. Print editions are distributed to civic leaders, elected officials, university partners, and community organisations across Los Angeles and California. Blueprint also convenes public events — conversations, panels, and interviews — to extend the discourse generated by each issue beyond the page, connecting researchers and policymakers in settings designed for genuine exchange rather than formal presentation. The magazine's podcast episodes, including Newton's interviews with major figures in California and federal policy, are available through the Blueprint website and through standard podcast platforms. General enquiries and press contacts can be directed through the UCLA Government and Community Relations office at advocacy.ucla.edu.

UCLA Blueprint
University of California, Los Angeles
Government and Community Relations / UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs
Los Angeles, California, USA

Editor-in-Chief: Jim Newton (lecturer, Communication Studies and Public Policy, UCLA)

Senior Editor: Richard E. Meyer

Website: blueprint.ucla.edu  |  About: blueprint.ucla.edu/about

Staff: blueprint.ucla.edu/staff-and-contributors