STEVE LOPEZ, award-winning columnist at the LATimes and best-selling author (The Soloist), just won a prize from Harvard for political reporting, but I don’t think of him as a “Political Reporter”. He’s a story-teller and the leading characters in his stories are the unsung heroes of Los Angeles. We talk about how he sees his role at the Times and in the community, his current take on Southern California and the state of journalism, and his new book (out 11/1), INDEPENDENCE DAY: What I’ve Learned about Retirement from Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will