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today we went to USA today and went to a press conference with a white house correspondent ! it was a very good question and answer session. He had alot of good answers for all of our questions. we asked him about Obamas reasons for closing down Guantamimo Bay. he said that it didnt represent our practices in the states, and that the prisioners were being treated unfairly. now were getting ready to do a radio broadcast! talk to yall later!

today was great, we went to the capital building and the pentagon city mall. The capital building was very intresting and guarded really tight. i remember looking up at the capital building and out of the corner of my eye i saw a Police Officer with a M16 machine gun. i was shocked but happy protection was there. ill tell you why i was happy to see him later on on my blog. anyway, after the capital tour we headed off to the mall, where we all ate at panda express and we all spent the rest of the night regreting it! lol ok, so we get back to campus and we eat dinner then we hear news of a shooting at the capital building and everyone was thinkimng to themselves,”we were just there.” it was sorta scarry but the police took care of the threat quickly. anyway its off to bed for me! we get to sleep longer tomorrow!

Today we have a speaker by the name of Wesley Piper, he was born in Iowa and lived on a farm for most of his childhood. He talked about how news will always be around for a couple reasons: 1. it draws people in to want to know more. 2. people want to know the truth and know the essence of the matter. He also talked about how you can have all the facts but still miss the truth. Meaning that you can almost be blinded by to much excitement and not take the time to look at what is right in front of your face. Another topic he talked about was that you have to look beyond the story to find out the truth. Sometimes you have to plot it out for yourself and see if both of the stories match up.

The panel discussion

The panel had a great list of questions for the correspondents to answer. A few were: how can journalists connect with the people? The answer for this is simple but yet a lot of journalists miss it. You have to speak the common language. You can assume anything, you have to explain it in plain words.

The panel also said that building relationships with Public Resources persons was a great help to him. He recommended that everyone do this.

Never be scared to take educated risks, meaning if someone needs you to do something, do it! Be flexible, be able to make changes and move on the snap. The do nots  he said were not to lie, because once you are caught in a lie then your sources are no longer trustworthy. Also he said do not get wrapped up in new things. Change is good but you have to analyze it first before you dive in.

Ok since I didn’t talk much about arriving yesterday im gonna inform ya a little about that. Since nerves were taking control of me I don’t remember much. When we all got checked into our rooms and got finished unpacking we all met for a lunch under a big canopy tent. After the lunch we went and got set up for the blog and we got a tour of the campus, which turned out to be really nice, I love the layout of it. So later on that night we had a speaker named Brian Lamb, who was excellent, I loved his speaking and how he presented himself. He talked about how to describe journalism and brought up a couple of the staff members to introduce themselves. Later on in the night we broke down into small groups with neelum and got to know each other. Then we crashed, I was beat tired and defiantly needed sleep.

5:30 this morning came really early for me ; i dont think i was properly prepared for this whole”waking up in the dark ” scene! but once i got moving things moving it went easier. steve and i went to breakfast and and got our grub on to take away that just waking up hunger.  After that we went straight to work, there is ZERO time to mess around while your here. its like one thing after another, after another, after another. for the most part of the day they keep you busy, but lets fastforward just a lil bit.  we went to the News museum in D.C and lemme tell ya that was awesome. we saw the 911 exibits and the Berlin Wall pieces. that by far was my favorite thing of the day. tonight we have dinner and then a another speaker about college choices. hopefully that will be intresting. cant wait till tomorrow to got the smithsonian and the the capital. ill keep ya posted in what happens tomorrow! till next time….. John

hey the first day was great! met alot of kool people. and neelum is awesome!!! she is the best leader. looking forward to tomorrow to see what it has instore……

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