Fiona Ng

Fiona Ng tells offbeat, curiosity-driven stories about how people spend their time, focusing on weekend experiences, local culture and the playful edges of technology. She is deputy managing editor for weekend and Explore L.A. coverage at LAist, leading a team that reports on food, culture, history, events and more. Her work centers on moments when leisure, design, science and pop culture intersect, from virtual K-pop idols and emoji challenges to retro gaming and neighborhood food carts. She approaches assignments as a producer and editor as much as a writer, shaping packages that feel accessible, visual and grounded in the texture of Los Angeles.

The fun beat: weekend and Explore L.A.

Ng oversees the masthead’s weekend and Explore L.A. coverage, a portfolio she describes as “the fun beat,” and steers stories that help people decide how to spend their free time.

Her briefs and features introduce readers to activities across the region, such as a virtual K-pop audition staged by Galaxy Corporation at the El Rey, where more than a hundred contestants tried out to be part of a virtual idol group. She highlights unusual amenities and attractions, including a bagel locker near Joshua Tree along Highway 62 and the striking architecture and hotel atmosphere of the Bonaventure in downtown. Her coverage mixes service and discovery, offering a clear sense of what an outing feels like while pointing out the technology, spectacle or design details that make it different from a standard listing.

That same approach underpins stories about retro arcade and pinball auctions in Orange County, where she treats gaming hardware and vintage machines as part of the city’s entertainment fabric rather than niche collectibles.

Food carts, mini-totes and Peking duck

Food is a central thread in Ng’s reporting, especially where everyday eating habits meet subculture and commerce. During the coronavirus pandemic she reported a short series on how COVID-19 affected San Gabriel Valley restaurants, following both old-school businesses trying to stay afloat and newer spots struggling to establish themselves while diners organized to support them.

She returns to that ground-level perspective in pieces about a Rowland Heights food cart serving jianbing guozi, Chinese crepes made to order in the street-food style familiar to customers who grew up with them.

She tracks small retail phenomena, such as coveted mini-totes at 99 Ranch that prompt comparisons with Trader Joe’s, treating a grocery-store promotion as an entry point into community identity and fandom. In a feature on “That Peking Duck Guy,” she profiles a radiologist who runs a backyard Peking duck operation for fun, showing how side projects and informal micro-businesses shape local food culture. These stories share a focus on specific people, objects and tastes, and on the way limited-edition goods, street carts and home-based ventures become social hubs and minor obsessions. Her interest in leisure technology surfaces in parallel through coverage of pinball and arcade auctions, where she treats machines both as nostalgia items and as part of a living economy of play.

Science, environment and sunlight

Ng’s “fun beat” extends to climate and science stories that explain how the region’s environment actually works. In a piece on LA tumbleweeds, she lays out the good, bad and ugly truths of these plants and their role in fires, connecting a familiar visual cliché to concrete fire risk and land management questions.

Another feature breaks down the science behind the city’s famously bright sunlight, pointedly noting that the beloved glow is shaped by smog and atmospheric conditions rather than pure clear skies. These stories retain her accessible tone but hinge on careful explanation and expert sources, translating environmental science into plain language and practical takeaways.

Technology and design remain in the frame, whether she is looking at how urban form influences pollution or how infrastructure and policy can mitigate the risks that arise from seemingly ordinary parts of the landscape.

Audio storytelling and pop technology

Ng brings a substantial audio and production background to her current role, which shapes the way she packages technology and culture stories.

She has previously produced on-demand audio for a public radio organization, creating, reporting and leading the production of “K-Pop Dreaming,” an eight-episode podcast series on the history of K-pop and its relationship to the Korean American diaspora in Los Angeles. Her work there and as a talk-show producer for a daily program sharpened her sense of pacing, sound and narrative, and that sensibility carries into her writing on virtual auditions, digital fandoms and other tech-mediated cultural phenomena.

An internal impact report credits her with turning the weekend news desk into a bright spot by embracing engaging stories such as a Tesla Supercharger station that doubles as a place to watch a movie and grab a burger, illustrating how infrastructure and entertainment blend in everyday life. Across platforms, she treats technology less as an abstract industry and more as a practical layer in the way people play, eat and move through the city.