Correction: I meant “everything’s bigger in Texas” in my last blog, not “nothing’s bigger in Texas”
There is some sort of talent show going on here in the Marriot Ballroom. A dance group called “Colours” is onstage, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” is blasting from the speakers and kids are pouring into the room.
If this [...]
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Walsworth Live
The Friday afternoon keynote session at the JEA/NSPA Convention started out on an energetic note with a performance from local D.C. dance troupe Colours, who bounced on stage and through the crowd to the sounds of James Brown, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson, frequently with the students in the crowd joining in.
And the optimistic tone continued when veteran newspaper reporters, and married couple, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser took the stage to speak to the crowd about the future of journalism.
I was expecting the classes to be larger, but what I was not expecting was to be the last person to get a chair at a 9 a.m. lecture at 8:45 in a room that seats 150.
It was worth duking it our for the last chair though to see my favorite speaker, Dave LaBelle, even if I did have to peak through heads to see him.
This is a few days overdue, but it’s been the most memorable part of the trip so far.
Taking my own, real pictures of President Obama was worth the six hours I sat in the near freezing rain. Being able to be at the Veteran’s Day wreath laying ceremony was not something I had expected to do on the trip.
Walsworth is here in our nation’s capital capturing the sights and sounds of the 2009 JEA/NSPA conference. If you aren’t here in Washington, D.C., don’t fret as you can keep coming back to Walsworth Live to see more videos from the event. If you are at JEA/NSPA, come by our booth and give us a shout, if not let us know your thoughts on what you are watching here and we hope to see you 2010! Watch the video now!
Yearbook conventions are the best. (Well, if you want to get technical about it, it’s the Journalism Education Association’s high school journalism convention, but we all know what the best part of high school journalism is–yearbooks!)
Anyways. After waking up at 3:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning for our flight out at 6, I proceeded to have a deliciously relaxing day chatting with security guards as they oh-so-tactfully told me that the way I was proceeding through their security line was entirely unacceptable. (Apparently 5′ 10″ Dutch girls with red basketball backpacks look like horrifying terrorists.)
Day one. (The first full day in D.C.)
Today was my first full day in Washington D.C. I woke up early this morning to go have breakfast. And by early, I mean like 6 A.M. I walked around the hotel and ended up going to a near by McDonalds with one of my roommates. After breakfast, we went back to the hotel room to meet up with our other roommates and we decided to go get Starbucks. We were told it was one block away. Who knew one means six in D.C.? Not us. Ha ha!
Today was definitely an interesting start to the convention.
We started out the trip by agreeing to sleep in until 1 p.m. Thursday morning, since we did not have tours until 1:30 — We woke up at 6 a.m.. After killing a few hours just being lazy, my three roommates and I decided it was time for a Starbucks run. We were told at first that it was only a block away, then two. It ended up being six. No big deal.
There are a few perks to being on staff. Deadline dinners with the best BBQ that Kansas City has to offer [Oklahoma Joe's, located in a gas station. Seriously good.]. Spirited Photoshop wars with the photographers. And finally, there are the trips. I’ve now been on five journalism getaways: D.C., a trip to Anaheim in the spring of my freshman year, St. Louis last fall and workshops in Dallas each of the last two summers.
When one travels to enough of these things, it’s hard not to pick up on a few stereotypes. The Virginia kids are always the most supportive at the awards ceremonies, complete with “V-A” chants after a student chalks up another accomplishment for the Old Dominion State. The other Kansas kids seem to be the most competitive.
The huge throng of student journalists who attended the JEA/NSPA keynote on Thursday night got to pocket journalist Nick Clooney’s advice: Be vigilant, be inquisitive, be thorough, be fair, be courageous and be wary of power, even any that you get.
Clooney talked about being open-minded and fair, quoting his grandfather: “It’s not what you don’t know that will hurt you, it’s what you know that ain’t so.”
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