Washington Journalism Conference

Day Two: July 13th

July 15, 2009

Wake Up: Time to get breakfast at 6 o’clock in the morning…Urggg I am so not a morning person, and some of these people aka my room mate is def. a morning person. So I  got up and left ASAP! I meet part of my group for breakfast and I sat with this girl named Karly. She lives like ten min away from George Mason University. 

Conference: Our first conference of the day was a guy named Wes Pippert…He was a journalist and worked many years in this field. He lived in Israel and he talked about uncovering the truth. He kept on asking us how we find the truth, and he kept saying ask questions… But the thing is we can’t always know if it is the truth, unless we are there. And even then we tend to form our own opinions. As he went on and on and on he finally came to the point that you shouldn’t form opinions. You do the best you can with the information you are given, while being open to all sides of the situation, event, or problem.

He was a was a Washington Director, and a former UPI Corespondent talked to us all today. He seemed very interesting… That is at first. He traveled all over and lived in Israel. He says that the most important thing is being honest and I couldn’t agree with him more. I mean once a person lies it’s like you never know if he is telling the truth or not. So it’s the same in Journalism if you print or give out the truth then people are more likely to come back for more information, aka call you for another job.

After about twenty minutes into Mr. Pippert started going off on wild story rants… Some of which where so long you forgot the original question, or lead him to another story and you never quite got a straight answer.

Newseum: The bus ride was nauseating… It was as if the bus driver didn’t know how to drive in D.C. She was constantly slamming on the breaks and going . The best thing we did all day. They had a huge flat screen T.V. in the lobby where they have a constant stream of news and quotes. They had a wax sculpture of Regan. On one of the walls it shows a map of the world and there are 3 colors representing how much freedom they have… America is the only one that is green which means we are free to write what they want. All the other countries are yellow or red, allowing them to write somethings that they want or none at all.

The best exhibet was the berlin wall and watch tower. It is the only one in the U.S. and you can actually go in the guard tower and look up to the top. =) I know I’m a geek, but that is awesomee! 

Conference (panel): This event was moderated by Christine LaPaille who is VP University Relations in George Mason University. Participants in the panel where: John Blacksten the director of Media Relations in George Mason University, Courtney Dozier director of Outreach and also Officer of Senator Mark Warner (D-Va), and Ed Prugh founder and President of Nevin Communication. 

This conference was long… I couldn’t concentrate on what they where saying, to me they where more of separate interviews all going on at the same time. I kind of felt that they all experienced the same things but in different ways which was cool, cause they each had their own view. But I honestly didn’t learn anything in this conference.

Jess, Ryan, and I in front of the Berlin Wall

We all even went up on the roof and got some nice group shots!

Jess, Me, Ryan, Audrianna, Andy, and Zach on the roof of the Newseum

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