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February 20, 2005
Dispatches from the District: Day Three
Well, I'm actually already home but since I was travelling back to Chattanooga all night last night, and then had to sleep, I haven't been able to post about day three until now. So here goes...
Saturday was an action packed day, full of fun and oodles of great information. The day started at 9 a.m. for me with a lecture from Bill Moushey, a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter and the executive director of The Innocence Institute of Western Pennsylvania. Moushey gave specific examples from his own career to instruct journalists on how they can work to overturn wrongful convictions. It was quite mindblowing stuff. You can find numerous examples of his written work by clicking the above link.
The next lecture I attended was entitled "Giving a Voice to the Voiceless," and was given by Jennifer Gonnerman, a staff writer for The Village Voice. She talked at length about writing her award-winning book, Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett, which I will be buying as soon as possible. She also gave great tips on getting really personal stories from your subjects.
Duncan Black, better known as the blogger "Atrios" from his blog, Eschaton, was the featured speaker at lunch. While I appreciated what Black had to say, it was evident, even amongst the hip AAN crowd, that blogging still isn't all that understood of a medium.
Dave Mann, the associate editor from The Texas Observer, gave the first post-lunch lecture -- a session on following the money to a good political story, which was very helpful and which left me even MORE confident in our recent decision to endorse a candidate. Mann talked at length about some recent scandals in Texas, and gave some really great tips on finding out what's really going on in and around elections.
The last lecture of the conference was conducted by Tim Redmond, the executive editor of The San Francsico Bay Guardian, and dealt with teaching writers to think like investigative journalists -- and not just rely on interviewing skills and public records research. We traced a few stories where the facts just didn't add up, and he quizzed us as we went as to what we would do to find the information we needed. It might've been the best lecture of the conference.
I'm a scavenger: During our stay, I grabbed (often multiple) copies of over 40 different papers, as well as copies of the nice spiral-bound AAN award books from each of the last three years. It'll be a fun week of reading for yours truly.
Nice Sight: In the main hall, all the visiting papers (including us) left copies of their issues on a long banquet table. Upon exiting one of the lectures, I saw four newspaper folks gathered around our paper and reading ALOUD our Wu Tang Clan Fantasy Camp story. They were laughing uncontrollably. I stood there motionless, probably smiling like an idiot as it caught me WAY off guard.
Our trip home was uneventful. I slept most of the way. I did see a hilarious "Grandma's Little Sidekick" bib in a convenience store in Virgina, though. Almost bought it.
Overall, it was a wonderful trip. I garnered priceless advice and information, networked HEAVILY, and had a blast hanging out with so many super-kind, super-talented people. I can't wait to go again next year.
An unrelated note: Upon checking the web, with eight days still left in the month, traffic to our website has QUADRUPLED from what it was for the whole month of January. Thank you to all who've visited our site, talked about our site and sent people there.
| By colrus | 04:08 PM
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