Flashback: Ye Olde Washington Semester

When people ask me why I initially decided to do the Washington Semester Program, like for most things in my life, I have my mom to thank.

My mom, Kathleen Sheedy, was going to Indiana's St. Mary's College in 1975 when she saw a sign posted advertising the Washington Semester Program. Although the sign stipulated that she must be a government major (which she was not), she ended up making a spur of the moment decision and tried to apply anyhow, choosing a random subject - Economics, even if she had almost no background and the rest of the applicants were already Econ majors.

Proof, it seems, that being qualified is totally overrated. [not that you didn't do a great job, mom, I'm sure you were fab]
(She semi-jokingly attributes her acceptance into the program to the fact that she was one of 3 women in the class of 25 or so men making up the Economic Policy Program)

Her dad, on his way to becoming a prominent Milwaukee judge, helped get her an internship with Henry S. Reuss, a congressman from Wisconsin, for whom she worked on the hill in Rayburn House. The best part, she says, was getting to go to hearings, even if she doesn't recall all the speakers or topics discussed. Just being able to mill around in the Capitol was enough.

And in those days, there was no security in the Capitol. Can you imagine - no lines, no slow old congressmen taking their grand ol' time "removing any items from their pockets", no curt, unnecessarily unfriendly ID-checking security guards. Must have been lovely.

During her time at AU she lives in Anderson Hall, and met a group of friends that, to this day, she stays in touch with.

My mom, Susan Dalton, Kym Waits, & Jeanne Burke

I asked her a couple more in-depth questions about her time & relationships in D.C. -

Q: Are you still in touch with the people you met on the program? If so, what did they think of it?
A: I think I put forth the effort to keep in touch with those I liked the most. We all came from different schools, so we all had to make friends. We all thought the semester was the smartest school decision we had made. Maybe we liked the fact that we did not have many tests, but the lessons and the speakers made all the topics seem relevant and practical. We were learning life lessons, not just textbook examples.

Q: What was your favorite part of the program?
A: Living in DC and having access to the Capitol.

Q: What did you learn?
A: Where to get a great cheap lunch in the house. - I learned that changing schools and meeting new people was easier than I thought.

Q: How has it helped you in your life?
A: It has made me open to change and new experiences. It is easy to get comfortable.

Q: Do you think you changed as a person? As a professional?
A: I think because of that semester, I transferred schools and changed majors. I think living in DC for two more years changed me as a person.
    This had such an impact on my college experience. I felt that all my kids should experience DC from the Washington Semester perspective. I graduated from Georgetown and lived in DC for two more years, but the program structure and requirement of two full days of internship was the key to understanding working in DC. I found that, because all the other students were doing the same, we experienced DC from a different perspective. We were not students there, but rather paraprofessionals getting our feet wet. 


So gracias madre - glad I could continue the legacy. Hopefully one day I'll be showing my own kid some horrifically out of date photo and insisting, just as adamantly, that somehow, yes, that hairstyle was in fact in style.

Candid

The first of December??! Good lord.
where has this year gone?

I'm not usually one for time-flies-when-you're-having-fun sort of statements, but good golly, it seems like just yesterday I was assessing the dire state of my dorm room carpet, and now here I am, resignedly accepting the design reason behind the murky colored flooring.
(sometimes, not knowing is better).

And on top of all that, we had the. coolest. speaker today. Not because his speaking skills were anything particularly stellar (though his stories were engaging), but because he has the.coolest. job of anyone we've seen so far. And I realize that this is a totally subjective statement - but seriously, how great would it be to have the title "National Geographic Documentary Filmmaker" ??

Pretty. darn. great.

John Bredar has made 26 documentaries, for which he has won 3 Emmys and a Peabody award. His most recent film, "The President's Photographer", tracks the life of the personal photographer to the President of the United States. I didn't even know the president had a personal photographer. I mean, I guess it's one of those things that you sort of assume, but don't really think about (unless you've got a creative think-outside-the-box mind like John Bredar, who got the idea while working on a former documentary after noticing a strange man popping up in all of his shots).

The topic is unbelievably interesting though. The photographer's main goal is to be invisible, and he prides himself on how insignificant he can be to the president's day to day life. His highest praise is to be ignored.
How many people can say that? (Admittedly, not as many as most of us would like).

I highly suggest watching the doc, which you can see here: http://video.pbs.org/video/1672209202/

After listening to John, I'm convinced that documentary filmmaking is the perfect solution for those of us who believe that the time that daily news journalists are allowed to spend with interview and story subjects is much much much too short.
Think. As a doc maker, I'd essentially get to stalk my subjects for weeks - even months! How fabulousss! it's like people watching to the extreme.

So essentially, it looks like my future now holds one of two possibilities: an Emmy, or one heck of a lot of restraining orders.

 

 

 

photos courtesy of The WH Flickr page & various other websites

"Even Worse Than We Had Hoped"

So, today we ended the day with a bit of a downer.
But you know what? I have a confession to make:
                                 Sometimes, I really like negativity.

I know, I know - I can already see all of you who know me snickering - "sometimes"!?!
And it's true - when it comes to my overall outlook on life, I may tend to tip the scales in favor of cynicism just a tad more often than not - a quality of which I assure you, I am not proud.

However, my propensity for seeing the glass half (or admittedly, as much as 3/4) empty makes me that much more appreciative of those wonderful few who can assess an unfortunate situation and come out smiling, convinced (at least on the surface) that the best is yet to come.

Paul Spellman is not one of those people.

His forecast for the TV news industry was anything but sunny. The stories, though at times visually entertaining, are essentially unimportant, overly simplistic and about "the silliest things". It pays you too little and works you too hard for the amount of personal reward it generally fails to deliver.

Poor Paul, his demeanor roughly resembling that of Steve Carrell in "Forty Year-Old Virgin", just could not catch a break. He worked his butt off to get a "one-man band" job that ultimately ground him into not only a financial, but a physical and emotional hole, only to move on "up" to a position that was somehow even less gratifying than the exhausting one he'd risen from.

And to make matters worse, his less than chipper personality hardly condoned the feel-good response that local TV news so often seeks. "I just come across as very serious," he said a bit resignedly, referring to how just his on-screen presence brought a totally somber air to what was intentioned to be a perfectly lighthearted piece.

Paul is now a lawyer, and he insists that it's only for the money insomuch that the money in TV News wasn't enough motivation to stick with something he didn't enjoy. It's probably all for the better, seeing as the first impression he engenders tends to suit his current job-title moreso than it ever would "news anchor". Nonetheless, I couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for Paul, who had to resign from what had once been such a fervent passion to a job in which he seems mildly content, if not slightly disappointed.

"Even Worse Than We Had Hoped" is the title of his book - very telling, I'd say, of the anchor-turned-lawyer's oddly good-humored cynicism.

But sometimes you just need a hearty dose of negativity to move on forward. Yes, it's true, I fully believe in the power of a good, long whine.

And with my boundless positivity, it's hard to believe, I know.

Essence

"This is just an era of my career," said Cynthia Gordon, Washington correspondent for Essence Magazine.

And something about the way she said that it was so reassuring - like it's OK to make little forays into new areas - to try something different, and just because you do so doesn't mean that you'll be doing that forever, or that you've somehow committed the rest of your life to this one pursuit - just that you're exploring possibilities.

It's OK to bounce around a little bit, see what you like, and take it from there. It's not always the GOGOGO - pushpushpush never stop - never slow down - never take a breath or make a wrong move ever world that everyone's got us so hyped up about.
Learning's not just for college - it's OK to save a little bit for the next seventy years or so. God forbid we haven't outlined bullet point by bullet point our entire existence by the time we're twenty.

Cynthia is 29 - really young in Washington terms - and she's already interviewed the President of the United States twice. But to end her profile there would be incredibly shallow, and though the risk of that description hasn't deterred me before, I want to highlight the fact that she has really tried out a diversity of journalistic forms.

She actually studied "Creative Non-Fiction" in college (an interesting concept in itself), then worked for Essence in New York; first for the arts & entertainment section, where it was her job to "be out" and just experience the culture of the city, then after some time, for the news portion, where she finally got to write what she loves most - long, "beautiful" narrative pieces about real peoples' struggles.
Ever since since moving to D.C., however, she's mostly written short, quick pieces for the website - a big shift away from her previous work. Nor is the content itself exactly her bread and butter; more politics, profiles and policy and less of the eloquent long-form personal stories that she's really passionate about.

But her optimism and the reassurance that this is just a phase of what's sure to be a long and varied career really helped to take the pressure off all of this life planning that I'm starting to get myself so worked up about.

I also loved how she scoffed at the fact that everyone makes politics seems so complicated, when really, she said, it just boils down to groups of people who want something - not such a foreign concept after all.

Once again, like yesterday's German speaker, I really appreciated her candidness and blunt overview of the highs and lows of her job. Those sorts of analyses are the most helpful.

     -  Press briefings aren't news / it's not the issues that drive the story, it's the people / print journalism   isn't over, but being just a print journalist is / pitch an interview by saying how its beneficial to both of you, and ask hard questions by hiding behind statements like "our readers think..."

Good stuff like that.

Feedback? Well, my mom will tell me if my tie is not tied correctly.

Today was so refreshing - even if I only understood about 1/3 of it.

This afternoon we went to the ARD German TV Bureau in Georgetown and spoke with Klaus Scherer, ARD's Senior Correspondent. He told us all about his job, which consists of doing hard news stories, background pieces ("a small story to represent a big one"), and even documentaries - all of which the German people mandatorily fund. He also does commentary, which is tough, because once the audience knows his opinion, they can then blame him later on for being biased even when he's doing a straight news piece. 

Klaus mimicking how an earpiece works

Klaus was so honest and blunt and just really forthright about stuff like that. He really let us in on the real challenges that he has to deal with as a correspondent - like getting past each country's stereotypes and quirks, and dealing with the difference between what sells / what is the easiest to cover / and what is the most newsworthy & important information.

He gave one example of a hurricane that was supposed to hit Florida but ended up changing direction at the very last minute, leaving the reporters in Florida bereft of any story. So instead, those still in the area decided to cover "how happy everyone was that there was no hurricane" as opposed to moving on to another important issue elsewhere. 

Klaus on TV commentating

He also mentioned how nowadays too often are reporters going into a situation knowing exactly what type of story they are going to get from it, when instead they should be looking for something new and surprising (something I've grown more and more aware of during my stay here, and that I honestly think needs some real looking into...news is not what you think is going to go on, it's what is really going on, and just because it's possible to find examples that support your hypothesis doesn't necessarily mean your hypothesis is right). 

but anyhowww...

I even loved hearing about the stupid little pain in the butt technical stuff - like dealing with delays, mics that fall out of your ear, and your own echo when communicating via satellite - Or not being able to wear a blue or green tie because the image on the blue/green screen behind you will then appear in the stripes - or how at some point, you stop listening to a person's words, and just wait for them to take a breath or say 'um' or 'ah' so you can cut them off and still make the time limit. 

good, really important stuff like that. 


really made me love Europeans even more. 
Not that all Europeans are honest and forthcoming. That would be a stereotype and a generalization Klaus would advise against. 

Klaus showing us how the monitor works

Klaus and his German (and Chinese) companions

Ed Henry & Chrissie Russo / Siena College

So I, as the officially sanctioned class photographer, was invited to come along today on a brief little journey to the White House, where I put my absolutely non-existent photographic training to good use capturing Siena College alum, Ed Henry, and current student, Chrissie Russo, together in one beautiful end-of-the-semester pose.

Enjoy.

naturally I managed to squeeze my way into one.

Politicorn on the cob

Today we welcomed another home-grown hero.
That's right folks - ol' Wisco is representin' again. Must be something in that hearty diet of corn and cheese us midwestern folks is raised on that makes the mind grow strong.

And seriously, Oshkosh-native Jim Vandehei has one strong mind. Not just in the sense that he is a powerful powerful intellectual force to be reckoned with, but in that this man sticks to his guns. When he's right, he's right, and nobody is going to convince him otherwise.

Jim created Politico.
Yeah - the same Politico that everyone in DC talks about non-stop - he made that. So one day, Jim, former assistant brick-layer, gets inspired when he's looking at the internet and realizing how it's creating this journalistic opportunity to do only stories that are new and interesting - no more of this "obligatory" journalism stuff (covering boring people with important titles saying boring things).

Why not just pick and choose the few stories that are really good, and then put the best reporters you can find on them. Win-win. (or win-win-win, as Michael Scott would suggest).

Well, everyone loved his idea, and everyone wanted a piece of it (everyone with money, that is, because otherwise who cares?). Now, Politico employs 200 people, has a huge profit margin, and commands the attention of everybody who's anybody on Capitol Hill & in the White House. 

It gets into the "nitty gritty"of politics. Who likes who, who hates who, who's out to get who, etc, etc.
And seriously, this stuff is interesting. I know the word "politics" is off-putting in itself - but think of it as Gossip Girl on the Hill. All these catty men (& to be fair, women, though I'd like to think that the men are what make this fine government the dysfunctional and scandal-ridden institution it is) in their secret wars - theoretical friends, personal enemies, committed to justice publicly, morally astray privately.

Even better than Gossip Girl, I'd say, - I mean, you expect this sort of behavior from spoiled New York teens (or 30 yr old actresses/same difference) - but not from the supposedly honorable collection of representatives charged with the task of running our nation. That just makes it so much more salacious.

Anyhow, Jim started this publication (print & online), and takes it very seriously.
He started the Q&A real casual, and then got extremely intense about what he expects both from his employees and from his business.
 -- There is no marketplace for mediocrity, we hire people who play to win- who have a track record for kicking ass, we have the constant mindset of a revolution --
Real hardcore stuff.

Major plus? According to Jim, journalism is well and alive.
Now prove it and hire me.