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Monday, January 19, 2009

Not so much "good night," but we need the "good luck"

Tonight is the night. It's probably the night that will never end considering it will run into the morning when we leave the place we're staying in Arlington for the Metro around 5 a.m. We definitely debated heading out on the first train at 4 a.m., but then reconsidered after realizing how much content we need to finish producing tonight before heading back to Elon tomorrow afternoon.

Today was very productive, once again. Our first interview was around 10 a.m. at the Willard Hotel. It was really interesting to hear about the history behind the hotel, especially when I found out that Martin Luther King Jr. stayed there to finish his "I Have a Dream" speech and that Abraham Lincoln stayed there on occasion. After the grand tour of the Willard, we headed over to the White House to catch some tourists, and that's when it started to snow! Unfortunately, it ended as abruptly as it started, but the fat, solid flakes made me smile enough to hope for more later on in the afternoon (though they never came).

We then made our LONG trek to the Dirksen Senate Office Building to interview Kay Hagan. There were a lot of entertaining moments that accompanied that trip. First, we found out we were at the wrong intersection...the building was not where we thought it would be. So, as we're trying to figure out where to go, the three of us break into a semi-run straight ahead toward the capitol and Supreme Court, realizing we only have 10 minutes left to get to the building, through security and down to the basement where her office is. The added tricky part was that we had a 5-minute window. If we weren't there at exactly 1 p.m. our interview would vanish at 1:06. It was definitely crunch time. We finally found the building and at 12:56, called to her office to have someone come get us and vouch for camera gear to get us through security. At 12:58, our escort came and we bypassed everyone standing in line for their senators' last available tickets for inauguration. There were some kind and loving words exchanged behind us as we were escorted in front of them through security. I had to wonder, did they realize they were talking about us that loudly when we were less than a foot away? At that point, we simply didn't have the energy to turn around and say that we were with the press and promised to not take away what little chance they had at obtaining tickets anyway. OK, so at that point, we were very overheated and not up to debating or feeling very remorseful.

When we got into the office at 1 p.m., we were feeling very confident about getting as much in as possible into the 2-minute slot we were alotted with Hagan. She was very busy today! It was a great interview and it seemed like she would have loved to talk more if only she had the time. After that, we headed to Richard Burr's office with hopes of an interview, but got a photo instead. Later, I conducted a phone interview with Howard Coble. It was a big day for interviews with politicians!

Our day was winding down, but before we headed out of the city, Derek and I were determined to get a story on the street vendors. After interviewing four of them, we had a solid base for our pet feature story.

And now, after dinner and a couple cans of ginger ale, I am tackling about four stories at once and uploading hundreds of photos to flickr so that The Pendulum and Burlington Times-News have solid content from us to run in the papers and online! So for now, good night (though it may never end) and good luck!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

A cure to loss of epicenter

When I woke up this morning, I diagnosed myself with having “lost my epicenter.” I couldn’t quite figure out why my balance was so off and why I couldn’t stop feeling so dizzy, but I was determined to not let it ruin my day and keep me away from the city. So, like every journalist should, I sucked it up. And sure enough, as soon as I hopped out of the car and approached Washington monument, I felt significantly better. The cold air certainly helped, but seeing the hundreds and thousands of people trek toward the Lincoln Memorial for this morning’s concert made the most significant change to my morale.

Derek, Olivia and I made our way through CIA security in about 10 minutes and waited at the end of the reflecting pool near the WWII Memorial. We gathered some man-on-the-street interviews and captured b-roll of the crowds and police officers at work. As it approached 2 p.m. we made our way along the left side of the reflecting pool to get closer to the jumbo screens where we could watch the concert. We could barely see the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, but just knowing that we were so close was an incredible feeling. One amazing moment was when Barack and Michelle Obama pranced down the stairs to greet the crowd. There was such an enthusiasm in the way they approached the podium. Even more enthusiastic was my and Olivia’s response. As soon as we saw them on the jumbo screen, we jumped up and down and hugged each other. We had no idea that the Obamas were going to show up at the concert! And we just couldn’t believe that we are HERE, in D.C. witnessing this moment. It was truly incredible.

The other gasps I emitted this afternoon were for Tom Hanks, Laura Linney, Steve Carell, Jamie Foxx, Stevie Wonder, Kal Penn, John Legend, James Taylor and…Josh Groban! I absolutely flipped out when he came on the steps that were his stage. As always, he sounded wonderful. Just thinking that we were that close to all those people…wow.

Derek was hardcore about his video today. At one point, he climbed to the top of a port-o-potty to get video and stills of the crowd! He didn’t start the trend, though. There were tons of people sitting on top of them all along the sidewalk. People were also sitting in the trees to get a good view of the steps.

Approaching the capitol yesterday and the Lincoln Memorial today brought on so many varying degrees of excitement and made me realize how incredible it is to be a part of this. I just wonder what we’ll witness tomorrow.

Viewing the capitol with new eyes

Driving up to Washington, D.C., yesterday, I had no idea what to expect. Derek Noble, Olivia Hubert-Allen and I were the “meat” of a sandwich caravan between the journalists of Phoenix 14 in front, and Colin Donohue, our adviser, and his wife behind us.

We drove here with a decent idea of stories that we wanted to seek out and cover, and the various ways in which we would go about writing, photographing and filming them. But I never could have expected what we faced when we hopped out of the car and approached the capitol yesterday afternoon. Our first plan was to take photos in front of the capitol before everything gets too busy and crowded to snag those few moments with a clear view of the American flag-bedecked building. But as we made our first attempt at a headshot, we were approached by a woman from Georgia, who wanted to share her story with us.

Several interviews and meetings later, we had solid material when we did not expect anything more than the comfortable feeling of getting our bearings of the area. We met an online reporter whose mother just moved to Elon, a man from Durham, someone for works for Voice of America, a retired Marine, a pair of pedicab drivers from Texas, and my favorite, a man from the Comoro Islands, which is between the eastern coast of Africa and Madagascar. Because of Abou Kaudra’s strong enthusiasm for Obama and the American way of life and politics, he was given a free trip to D.C. by the American ambassador of Madagascar. Traveling for 16 hours, he is here to take small steps and a giant leap for his country.

Two hours passed by and we hadn’t even realized it until it became dark enough to use a camera light for our final interview with Kaudra. Exhausted on the ride home, but energized by our productive first day, we got to working as soon as dinner was over.

This is going to be one of the best reporting experiences of my college career, and as I mentioned to Olivia and Derek when we were first approaching the capitol, I never imagined that I would attend an inauguration, but covering it is even more incredible.