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The Teen Appeal
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From March 18 to March 23, 102 high school seniors and aspiring journalists from across the nation met in the lobby of the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.
I was one of them becaue I was chosen as the female high school journalist representing Tennessee in the Annual Al Neuharth Free Spirit Scholarship and Conference program.
The student journalists who participated in the conference received $1,000 scholarships and gold medals from The Freedom Forum. We were accepted into the program through a competitive process in which more than 800 students applied. Two students, one female and one male, were chosen from each state. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to be in the company of so many future journalists.
The conference began with a visit to the studios of NBC. While there we viewed a live taping of “Meet the Press,” the longest-running syndicated television show in history, as well as the most-watched Sunday morning news show in America and the most-quoted news program in the world. The moderator of Meet the Press, Tim Russert, was the highlight of our visit as we got the opportunity to meet him and ask questions.
“Ask hard questions. That’s what I do for a living, I don’t think you should be personal and I don’t think you should be emotional,” Russert told us before the taping.
Later that day we took in the sights. The Washington Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and the world-famous Vietnam War memorial captivated me. This was my first visit to the nation’s capital .
Matthew Bergh from South Dakota walked up the stairs to the Lincoln Memorial with me. He said he “got that tingly feeling” as we talked about Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which took place where we were standing. We were also fascinated by an elderly lady protesting outside the White House, and I think most of the students found her and her protest more interesting than the White House itself.
Also on the first day, we met Al Neuharth, the founder of USA Today and the Freedom Forum. He encouraged our journalistic natures and offered us some insight into what he thought we should be doing as young journalists.
“First of all, you have to be very curious about everything that’s going on. That’s the polite way of saying you have to be nosy,” he said.
During the conference we also met Betty Winston Baye, an African-American columnist and editorial writer for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky.
“Journalism is a humanizing profession. It is defining to know that you can change someone’s life,” Baye said. “Everyone thinks that just because you’re young, you have nothing to say. I believe if you’re old enough to die in Iraq, you’re old enough to have an opinion.”
We also heard from journalists such as Judy Woodruff, Al Hunt, John Seigenthaler and his son, John, who is on the “Saturday Nightly News.”
The Seigenthalers, who are Tennessee natives, told us the story of the elder Seigenthaler being falsely accused of being a Communist traitor on the Web site Wikipedia.com, which allows users to post information as part of its user-created dictionary.
“People should be held accountable for the things they say wrong. They hold me accountable for the things I say on Nightly News,” said the younger Seigenthaler.
During the week we also had the chance to view a taping of C-SPAN and were joined by South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle and former White House Correspondent Helen Thomas, who had some special advice for women in the media.
“If you’re in this business to be loved, forget it,” Thomas said. “Women have had it very tough with these professional jobs. I’m still outraged that we didn’t get the vote until 1920. We’re not there yet, but we’ve come a long way.”
A highlight of the trip was hearing from Charles Haynes, an advocate for First Amendment practices in schools who said students need to know their rights.
“I think the solution to our fear of freedom is more freedom, not less freedom,” Haynes said. “We want people graduating who know what democracy is and can practice it.”
We also met some young professional journalists, who gave me hope that one day I, too, will be a successful reporter. Among them were Minnesota Vikings sports writer Sean Jensen, Columbia University freshman and 2004-05 Top Free Spirit Cyrus Moussavi, Hurricane Katrina victim and Washington D.C. news anchor Meredith Mendez and Arizona Republic reporter Kristen Go, who won awards for her coverage of the Columbine High School shootings.
The conference also included a stop at the Arlington, Va., offices of USA Today. We met three USA Today reporters — Julie Appleby in the money department, Oscar Dixon in the editing department and Ann Oldenburg in the life department. The newspaper office was just as I imagined a huge newsroom would be — people dashing back and forth, phones ringing and televisions blaring in the background. I could tell this is a place where the news is made.
Ken Paulson, the editor of USA Today, explained his paper.
“A big part of American culture is being able to talk about what we saw on television last night or what we read in the paper; the big difference in USA Today is we’re all over Desperate Housewives. We’re all over the XBOX. If you care about it, we care about it,” he said.
The conference wrapped up with a question and answer session with astronaut Eileen Collins, the 2005 Free Spirit of the Year; Lee Kravitz, the editor of PARADE Magazine; and Greg Mortenson, the 2003 Free Spirit of the Year award winner.
Joe Paterno, Pennsylvania State University’s football coach, was one of two winners of the Free Spirit Award. At the Free Spirit of the Year Award Ceremony at the National Press Club, Paterno returned the $10,000 that came with his award.
“Give it to some kid that needs a little bit more than $1,000,” Paterno said.