The Bottom Line

Issue date: 9/6/06 Section: News

"A long journey lies ahead in your new publishing year, and there's no better place to start that journey than the birthplace of modern journalism, Washington, D.C." Well, I'm sold. Last month, I represented the hard hitting journalism team here at the Bottom Line at the Associated Collegiate Press 23rd Annual National College Newspaper and Yearbook Workshops.

As I walked onto the Metro platform at Suitland station at 6:30 Friday morning, dreading the 40 minute ride to the Gallery, I wondered how I got there. My first year at Frostburg was a juggling contest between the Bottom Line, United Campus Ministry, and actual schoolwork. "Deadlines amuse me", which was posted on our bulletin board in the office, was my personal motto. I hope that maybe I'd learn a little about balance that weekend, as I walked through the huge doors into the Renaissance Washington hotel.

My first course, "Newsroom Management for Newspaper Editors" set some priorities straight in the first twenty minutes.

"If it comes down to studying for a math test or preparing for a deadline, prepare for the deadline" said Ian Newman, Advisor for the SUNY Rockland college paper.

I learned another lesson just from walking around the four-star hotel. As I gawked at the plush carpeting, uniformed bellhops, and the snobby concierge, I realized why people actually pay 200-plus dollars a night to stay at places like this. At least for St. Louis, the even bigger college media conference The Bottom Line's editorial staff will be attending in late October, I won't have to open my pocketbook personally to go.

The focus of the conference seemed to be on the changing world of journalism, as was highlighted by the keynote speakers. As we brace from the Supreme Court decision not to hear Hosty v. Carter, the first real threat of censorship towards college media, college journalists are just the on the front line in the current and varied attacks on the First Amendment. This is scary stuff.

"So you want to be journalists? What, are you nuts?" said John Walcott, Washington Bureau Chief of the McClatchy (formerly Knight Ridder) Newspapers, opening his keynote address. "We live in a world today when if one says something critical about the administration, you might just have your wife's identity as a CIA agent leaked."

While a feeling of dread resided through Walcott's keynote, humor was the basis of Jose Antonio Vargas' speech, style writer for the Washington Post, closing out the conference and focusing on the "lighter" side of news.

"Style is a lot like porn. You know what it is when you look at it, but you can't really describe it" said Vargas.

All and all, while this conference didn't teach me more about journalism than I've learned through experience at the Bottom Line. I spoke with Jeremy Bruno, our editor-in-chief here at TBL, on the phone following the conference to relay that we had not won any of the Best in Show awards (come on, St. Louis). I said that "it seems like all of the pieces are coming together". Thanks, ACP, and see you in St. Louis.

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