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Archive for the ‘Spring 2009’ Category

My First Day as a Grown Up

April 30th, 2009 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Spring 2009

Me At My First Day

Today I made “Katherine Mozzone” history when I completed my first day at my first REAL job. When I say real job, I don’t mean that I have never been paid for my labors before. In fact, I have worked several jobs during my career as a student, most of which were all for a year or longer. I suppose the key factor in determining what makes a REAL job is my status as a student. All of my previous jobs were part-time, retail positions. However, today I began a (soon to be) FULL-TIME position. Moreover, I am, technically, a college graduate!

So what is this amazing, super-fantastic, full-time position I’m raving about, you ask? I am a receptionist at NBC News channel in Washington D.C. Okay, so its not ideal. It’s not what I worked four, long years to become. In fact, I took issue with the idea that, while my friends were working as reporters and one-man-bands in “the middle of nowhere” Georgia, I was to be answering the phone and sorting mail hundreds of miles away. On the other hand, I’m not real keen on the idea of living in the middle of nowhere. I know you have to start somewhere but why not here? Why not D.C.? Is it because it’s one of the top markets in the United States? How about the fact that every professional reporter, producer, and nearly every professor I’ve ever spoken to says I have to start small and, unfortunately, I cannot say, with all confidence, that I don’t buy into their advice.

Then why did I take the job, right? Good question! I suppose I believe that times are changing. I’d like to believe the voices of those two professors who told me I DON’T have to start small in order to have a serious future in this business. Starting small equals the middle of nowhere and after a semester in D.C., I don’t know if I could handle a single stop light and the absence of Starbucks. What it all comes down to is a job as a receptionist is better than no job at all, especially in this economy!

~Katherine

What The Heck Is #edemcamp and #POLC09 ?

April 22nd, 2009 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Spring 2009

You may be asking yourself “What do those mean?”

Well, party people, those are hashtags that are used on the popular microblogging site Twitter. When you include hashtags in your tweets, it serves as sort of like a grouping device. If someone has something political to say and he or she is a conservative, he or she can use the hashtag #tcot meaning Top Conservative on Twitter. If you search #tcot at Twitter Search, you find a lot of conservative tweets!

#edemcamp was the hashtag for E-Democracy Camp. It was an un-conference (an informal conference that’s largely ‘user-created’) that was about the Internet in democratic processes. The topics of government apps; making local, state, and national government more transparent, how to get young people more involved; making data more available; and improving government and campaign websites were discussed during the sessions.

#POLC09 was the hashtag for the 2009 Politics Online Conference. It was a two-day ‘techie’ conference that was about the use of Internet and technlogy in democracy. POLC09 featured elected officials who were using new technologies like Twitter or advanced applications to make elections run better. It also had sessions about the role of cell phones; applications and interfaces used to improve elections (such as Vote Report) and to allow people to get more involved; the future of campaign websites; and the role of new technology in things like congressional offices and campaign organizing.

I had the great opportunity to attend both of them! #edemcamp was graciously hosted by GW, and #POLC09 was put on by GW’s Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet. These conferences were filled with people who are extremely knowledgable about technology and politics. They are informed and opinionated, and it was a thrill for me to be around such smart people.

The types of computer applications that are being developed by people (like Click-to-Call and Mixed Ink) are amazing. I cannot in any way give justice to these three days.

I’m blogging about this largely to let poeple know that if something interests you, even if you’re an amateur like I am, you NEED to check it out!!!!!

This fits in with a high school graduation speech that Conan O’Brien gave in 2006:

“What I’m asking you to consider is that the next four years don’t have to be just a stepping stone. You are very bright, impressive young people. But for the last four years, your GPA has been calculated to two decimal points and you’ve pushed yourselves very hard. Many of you have succeeded because you have stuck to a very rigid and linear path and that is fine, that’s fine. All I’m asking you to do in college is to take a moment every now and then, breathe, look around you. If something intrigues you, take a small chance. You might just find your entire life you’ve been planning on. …

The point is, at this moment, many of you have ideas of what you want to do with your life, but for many of you those ideas will change. And that’s because you think you know who you are right now, but you really don’t. … But life and the choices I made have changed me in a thousand ways. None of it would have happened if I had rigidly kept my eyes on the prize and decided with great determination to follow my dream, because I didn’t have the slightest idea what my dream was when I was 18. It had to find me.”

I read that when I graduated from high school in 2007, and it has indeed shaped the way I look at opportunities and life. It’s part of the reason why I am here in Washington, D.C., blogging to you today.

Thanks.
~Alex

Photo By: http://www.flickr.com/photos/di_tommy/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Why I’m Excited For DC Festivals

April 12th, 2009 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Spring 2009

A Festival On the Mall

First, because the weather is undoubtedly warming and there is nothing dull about that! Last weekend I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival parade to get some interviews and enjoy the scenery. Later, Alex and I enjoyed a lovely spring night at the first Nationals game of the season. It brought us back to fun SUMMER memories of Twins games, and that’s a good thing.

I am so pleased about the weather!!

But more importantly, I am excited because of what I learned from class last Friday. In order to understand why I’m so excited, there are a few things I need to explain.
Throughout the semester, our program assistant, Andrea Michnik, has been teaching me and a few interested others about social media, specifically Twitter. Twitter is kind of hard to understand for “non-tweeters,” but I have found it to be a very fun and helpful social and professional resource. I won’t go into the ins and outs here, but if you’re curious about it, you can go to www.twitter.com/jclynes to see what some “tweets” look like (without having to sign in). I’ve gotten some really cool opportunities, advice, and connections through it though.
ANYWAY, Andrea has been an advocate and mentor on issues of “social media” and, as we learned on Friday, this is an aspect of journalism that is quickly developing and expanding. Andrea found 3 interesting speakers to come in and talk about how they use social media in their life.
The first was a TWENTY TWO year old, named Meg Roberts, who has this incredible job with New Media Strategies as a PR rep who works with her clients (such as Disney) to advertise/promote their products via social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, myspace, etc). While her job certainly sounded exciting, what was probably more interesting to me was that she graduated in May ‘08 and was so driven and impressive in her internships and interviews that she’s already been hired to this incredible job at such a young age! Her advice really spoke to me because she talked less on “traditional” journalism, which many of our other speakers tend to stick to, so it was more applicable to my focus since I’m likely not going to end up in mainstream journalism. Anyway, she talked about how to use twitter as a professional resource and she also said that she used her blog (while interviewing) as leverage. Once she picked her topic of interest (PR in her case), she would blog about it and promote her blog to her interviewers to show her interest in the subject, as well as her writing ability. This is seems like such a good idea!

Next, two other social media pros came in (for those of you on twitter… they’re: k8michael, and cheeky_geeky… rather famous in the “twittersphere”) to talk about the way they use social media in their careers and extracurriculars. Mark is a government scientist who recently ran the Government 2.0 Camp and Kate Michael was Miss DC 2006 and has a blog that has become so popular that she’ll be giving up her day job soon to dedicate her time to all the videos, posts, tweets and social stuff that’s almost 100% online! Hard to believe, I know.
None of these 3 individuals has a life that I would like to directly emulate, but they did show me how to apply personal interests (writing, news, promoting certain issues, etc) into something professional, productive, and even lucrative. Kate gave good advice about how she’s promoted her blog: www.kstreetkate.com, into the online success it is. I won’t tell you specifically what I learned from her, but hopefully my new blog (coming soon), will teach by example!

It was just very exciting to have a new task that I can focus on before I worry about finding my place in the real world… and something that may even help me GET to my place in the real world. So, I’ll be starting up a new blog into something that will hopefully be much more green and professionally focused. I don’t know that this will happen before the end of this semester, but I’m excited about the opportunity…. and I’m more excited that I don’t need someone else to give it to me! I get to make it on my own! How convenient. It just basically works out well because I love to write.

Anyway, the end of the program is going to be so busy and go so quickly. I’m bracing myself by cutting back hours at work, especially because I really want to be able to enjoy DC in the springtime! I’m excited for the stuff we have left, but I’ll admit, I’m excited to be done!

Alright, I’ve got work tomorrow and then I’ll need to mentally prepare myself for another crazy week ahead.

I realize this post may be difficult to understand, but Friday just gave me a sense of direction that I had been looking for since the semester started. It may not be a final direction, but it’ll definitely do for now. Anyway, Andrea, if you’re out there… THANKS!

~Jenny

Thanks Jenny for the mention! I’m so glad you are learning to embrace new media and can see how relevant it is to the Journalism industry. Keep it up! ~Andrea

The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened To Me

March 27th, 2009 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Spring 2009

On Wednesday, March 25, I learned about President Obama’s virtual town hall meeting while I was at work at NBC News Channel. I liked the idea and knew that if I asked a question, it would be about making college more affordable. My two best friends, Kristen and Malorie, were in town during Kent State’s spring break, and when I got home from work, I asked them if they wanted to ask a question and submit it to the website. They kind of laughed it off, but around 6:00 p.m., I asked them again, and we began writing a question and recorded this video with my digital camera while sitting on Jenny’s bed:

After that, we continued with our evening. I posted the link on my facebook, and the next day at work, a producer watched the video and forwarded the link to a few more people in our office. My co-workers said they liked it and thought it was a good question.

During President Obama’s town hall, I was being filmed because I was a young person watching it on the computer while texting my friends. A reporter jokingly said, “When he answers her question, get ready to run so you can get her reaction on camera.” I had spent a lot of time going through the website voting on questions, so I immediately recognized two top questions that both received over 6,000 yes votes. Our video got 6 yes votes and 12 no votes, so I knew our question would not get played.

I began eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich while watching the town hall meeting on my computer. I then heard one of our reporters and a producer yelling. They were watching the town hall on the NBC feed, so it was several seconds ahead of the internet broadcast. I heard the moderator of the town hall say “Alex from Ohio”, then I saw our video come on the screen.


I began shaking, and I couldn’t breathe. One of our photographers ran towards me, and other people in our office began looking at me and watching me freak out. It was such a meaningful and powerful moment in my life; something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced.

My reaction was caught on camera, and a reporter compared me to the announcement of Miss America. I was in total shock… I still can’t wrap my head around the idea that the President of the United States watched my silly video and looked at me and talked to me and listened to me and answered me.

The best part was after our video was played, President Obama said, “That was pretty well done!” The audience laughed and clapped.


The “Open for Questions” forum received over 104,000 questions. President Obama answered 4 typed questions and 2 video questions – including mine. The remainder of the questions were asked by people in the audience.

At work, the D.C. NBC News Channel package included me. It had my reaction and also a few good sound bites from Secretary Geithner and President Obama. The package ended with “Geither’s goal: blahblah. Obama’s goal: blahblah. Alex’s goal: taking a breath.”

Our office is shared with a reporter from the Columbus Dispatch, a reporter/photographer for Ohio News Network, and Telemundo, and they all wanted to include me in their pieces that day. Our managing editor contacted the person in charge of NBC stations in Ohio to inform them of what had happened. A little blurb about me was on the 11 o’clock news on the NBC Cleveland affiliate station, WKYC. Here are a few appearances of our video in the news:

CNN (We’re at 1:15)

ABC World News

The Columbus Dispatch

I would like to thank Kristen, Malorie, my co-workers at NBC News Channel, everyone at the Semester in Washington Journalism program, my parents, and the White House staffer who first viewed our video and liked it.

You all made yesterday the best day of my life.

Inauguration Day 2009: A Play by Play

January 21st, 2009 by admin | no comments yet | posted in: Spring 2009

Events of January 20, 2009

12:00 am: Go to bed
1:24 am: Fire alarm goes off in dorm; whole building is evacuated and all occupants stand outside for 30 minutes while they check for the “fire”
2:00 am: Defrost and return to bed.

4:55 am: Regular alarm goes off. Time to get dressed and grab video camera to head out.
5:15 am: meet SIW friends, Jen and Laura, to have a quick breakfast and head to the parade route.
5:45 am: Walk out of dorm and cheer because we’re so excited! We followed the crowd on the streets who were all walking toward the mall. We didn’t really want to go to the mall, but all the streets were blocked off, so we kinda ended up at the Washington monument by accident. Also: I ran into one of my HS friends’ dad on the way. What are the chances?!
6:00 am: By now we’re getting frustrated that we’re still walking near the mall and have been told by 3 separate officials to go a different way to get to a parade checkpoint, all three of which were dead ends.
7:00 am: Finally find a parade route entrance. We’re about 200 yards from the security checkpoint. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people at one time in my life. Ever. Except for the few complainers in the crowd (about the weather, bad direction-giving, confused volunteers, crabby secret service agents, etc.) everyone is really happy, excited, and randomly shouting Obama! or singing/cheering, etc.
8:00 am: It’s light out now. We walked about 100 yards closer to the checkpoint at 10th and Constitution but are definitely not going anywhere anytime soon. Amos assigned a 3-minute film about the Inauguration for class, so we start shooting quick snippets of what we’re up to. Spirits are still relatively high although we’re getting realllllly cold.
8:30 am: Strongly consider returning home due to the weather and the fact that we’ve barely moved closer to the checkpoint in the last hour. We probably would have except for the fact that a.) my mom would have been so disappointed! b.) we had no idea how to get home due to all the crowds/road-closures, c.) Jen has to write an article for her Internship about the Salt Lake City marching band (this was our most persuasive reason, I’d say).
9:00 am: Things start to get miserable and we still haven’t moved. The three of us start singing patriotic songs, and then move onto hymns, motown, camp songs, other misc. church songs, Disney classics, you name it. We were taking requests from the crowd in no time. They were pretty shy about joining along, but we had a few additional choir members from time to time.
10:00 am: The singing has made the time pass amazingly! Our spirits are raised and so are those of the people around us (we’d like to think, anyway). Unfortunately, we still haven’t moved and we receive news that the checkpoint at 12th and Constitution is nearly empty.
10:05 am: We RUN to 12th and Constitution.
10:15 am: Get in line amongst new checkpoint crowd (yes, there’s a crowd. We learn the hard way that “nearly empty” means different things when we’re talking Inauguration day.) We meet our new standing-neighbors, include them in our video, and discover that this crowd is packed so tightly that we can purposefully fall in any direction and not even move! Great fun!
10:16 am: We’ve got a vast majority of the new checkpoint crowd joining us in The Star Spangled Banner and God Bless America. We like this new crowd!
11:15 am: We’re in!!!!! Very cold, but very happy!! Parade starts in 3.5 hours…. what to do?
11:20 am: We begin interviewing parade-goers about their Inauguration day experiences. We ask: Where are you from, What are your least and most favorite parts of the day, and, If you could ask Obama one question, what would it be? (stay tuned for link to the video!) It was very interesting to hear everyone’s varying answers.
12:00 pm: We stake out a spot on the bleachers (yes, we get to sit for the first time!) and realize that we’ve somehow made it into a tickets-only area where they aren’t letting in anymore parade-goers. Although this is very exciting news, we’re getting QUITE chilly again.
12:05 pm: We begin, along with 90% of the nearby crowd, to dance to the music being played over the loud speakers in order to keep warm! Great fun!
12:20 pm: Obama is sworn in! Cheering, yelling, rejoicing, and dancing everywhere! Everyone is SO happy! We sit down to listen to his speech, which is great and distracts us from the fact that our toes are turning purple and may fall off. The whole of the parade route goes eerily silent while listening to what he has to say.
12:45 pm: Return to dancing and notice the police standing nearby making fun of us. This does not bother us.
1:00 pm: Trying to keep busy. We’re not allowed to leave our “exclusive” section so we don’t loose our spots, but this means no bathrooms, food, warmth, or change of scenery!
2:00 pm: All hapiness is gone. Extremely cold and contemplating leaving, except for Jen’s damn story. humph.
2:30 pm: Parade was SUPPOSED to start now…. we get a clue that this isn’t happening anytime soon when they start sharing inauguration trivia over the loud speakers.
3:05 pm: I give up and leave my “exclusive” spot to go inside (which is outside the security checkpoint). I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I did wait for over 9 hours to go inside RIGHT before the start of the parade.
3:10 pm: I’ve gone to the bathroom and am watching the parade on a giant screen with a decent crowd inside the Historic Post Office food court eating a delicious gyro and french fries.
3:15 pm: Parade has begun, but has not yet reached our previous standing post. I notice Jen and Laura inside getting hot chocolate, also having exited the secure parade area. We watched the start of the parade inside and cheer along with those outside while we defrost. I decide to head back because I cannot get the idea of sweatpants, sweatshirt, a couch, a chai, and CNN out of my mind (where I am right now!)
So, I left Jen and Laura there and took the metro (no small task due to the crowds… but it was helped by the fact that I found a metro ticket worth $13.50 on the ground!). I’ll be very interested to hear if they made it back out for the Salt Lake marching band…. the thought of being back out there gives me nightmares, but they seemed determined! I’m so impressed!
Even though this was a long, cold, and draining day that didn’t result in me seeing the parade, I don’t consider it a failure. This whole entire city looks like Mifflin street in Madison after the block party, only all the beer paraphernalia is replaced with hand-warmer wrappers, Styrofoam coffee cups, Obama trinkets, and Inauguration information guides. It was AMAZING to be among all the “party people” this morning and this weekend who have come from all over the US and world to welcome Obama into the White House. It sounds weird, but one of the coolest parts of the day to me was to observe all the people who were dancing to do ANYTHING to stay warm, or peeing in satellites with no toilet paper, or standing in line for hours and waking up at 5 am all to show Obama that they are overjoyed and inspired that he is our new president.
Basically, even though the people who stood on the mall or waited along the parade route were certainly uncomfortable, they we’re still astonishingly excited and cheered louder than ever when Obama walked (!) past. This morning was a perfect combination of an incredible and horrible experience. I’m so glad I was here to experience it, but I will NEVER do it again!
I’ll post our video once we make it, and I’m going to go back to watching the parade while I’m nice and warm on the couch!
 
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Semester in Washington Journalism 805 21st Street NW, Suite 400
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