New York, New York

Over Spring Break I was given the invaluable opportunity to attend a three-day journalism conference in New York City with three other editors of The Foghorn. We were in conferences from about 8 am to 3 pm, and then the afternoons and evenings were free for exploring. Needless to say, I had the time of my life.

The conferences were incredibly fascinating. It came to little surprise to me that many of the speakers emphasized the importance of new media for college newspapers, and newspapers in general.

Blogs. Podcasts. Videos. Comments. Sound familiar, digital journalism classmates?

I am really excited to start incorporating these story-telling technologies into the Foghorn's online platform, which is embarrassingly behind the times. Some of my co-editors seem hesitant to incorporate these changes, in part because they don't know how and in part because they don't know why it is important. Hopefully I can start changing that soon -- I know this conference definitely got me pumped to start taking some action.

I really enjoyed hearing from the professional journalists as well. A lot of them talked about how to get a job and what to expect when you do get one. It's funny how in all of my media studies classes, we rarely get any information about what an actual job in the media industry entails.

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As much as I learned inside the conference rooms, I learned almost as much by exploring the great city of New York. What an experience.

First of all, the food! Oh goodness, I have never eaten so well (or so poorly, from a nutritional standpoint). In my few days in the city, I enjoyed a cheesy roast beef sandwich from Connolly's Pub, a thick slab of chocolate cake from Junior's, and delicious Latin American cuisine from Boca Chica.

And I may have indulged in more pizza than one should in a three-day span. Oops.

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Our hotel was in Times Square (check out the view from on of the conference rooms!)


But, just as Union Square does not give one an authentic taste of San Francisco, I am sure Times Square does not give much of an accurate portrayal of NYC, so my fellow travelers and I tried to branch out as much as we could in our short stay.

We went to the Laugh Lounge comedy club in the Lower East Side to see some local comedians.

On St. Patty's Day we hit up some Irish Pubs (and I'm pretty sure we saw a real life leprechaun, or else just a very short, red-haired, and intoxicated Irish man).

We checked out Ground Zero. That was humbling.


From there we walked through the Wall Street area to Battery Park, where I got to see the Statue of Liberty.


And we took a super touristy double decker bus ride that actually ended up giving me a good grasp of the city.

I took loads of pictures, so to see the madness firsthand, check out my Flickr set.

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Incidentally, I was in the city in the midst of some pretty major breaking news: the embarassing Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal and the tragic construction mishap that left seven dead. It was interesting to hear all the buzz amongst locals about these major incidents. And there is something really cool about reading the New York Times when you're actually in New York City, a block or so away from its headquarters.