Sen. Barack Obama prepares for presidential primary at town hall meeting in Reading, Penn.















Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) pauses during a town hall meeting in Reading, Penn. He and Hilary Clinton (D-N.Y.) have been campaigning in preparation for for the presidential primary scheduled on Tuesday, April 22, 2008. (Reuters photo by Bradley Bower/April 20, 2008)

Teach For America

Wow. I didn't realize how much of a challenge that was going to be. Getting strangers to call you back is not the easiest thing ever. Again, I resorted to someone I knew personally. My friend's sister was a teacher for Teach For America and she gave me a whole bunch of good information. Omari gave me some good information, but everything he said I pretty much already knew just from reading the website. He was a nice guy, but I could tell he had other things to do, which is understandable. Laura, however, was SO helpful! She inspired me to want to join the program. I know this girl personally and she is not the teacher type. The fact that she enjoyed this so much and had so much to say really made me think about this for myself.

Here's the link to my story. Enjoy!

Picture Post!

Here's my picture blog! I'm actually really excited about this because I love love love photography. All of the pictures were taken by me (except the one I'm in and the Spice Girls picture). Read the captions to see where everything is from! :)




This picture tells a story. It's my little brother (not so little anymore, he's 17 now) on our cousin's boat in Sicily. It was our first time on the Mediterranean Sea. Woo hoo!















This picture doesn't really tell a story, but it's pretty! This is from the balcony of my aunt and uncle's home in Palermo (I'm related to about 75% of the people in the distance!) ;)















This picture fills the frame. It touches two points in the picture (rule of thirds). This is from our family cemetery in Sicily.















This is an example of a picture that doesn't fill the frame. It's a pretty flower, but there is a lot of awkward space around it and the most attractive parts don't follow the rule of three lines.















Action! This was me on the day of Alpha Xi Delta's Big/Little Reveal last semester! This is me trying to quickly put together a puzzle with my big's number on it.

One huge pile of puzzle pieces + 27 girls = forever to finish!












No action, but really funny. My friend did this to my car while I was still in class. This was from my senior year of high school. LOL






















Candid. This is Will Pugh, the lead singer of Cartel (one of my favorite bands). This was from my first time seeing them. :-D





















Not candid. I didn't take this one (obviously), but these girls are my life! I've been a fan since 4th grade and I saw them for the first and last time on February 24th. It was their second to last show.

Best. Night. Ever.

Feature story progress

My progress with this story and the interview picked up a lot last week. I was able to get in touch with Omari and we had a great discussion. He really loves Teach for America. He seemed excited to share his experiences with me.

This is the rough, rough, rough draft of my feature lede:

Teach for America is a corps program for college graduates that changes the lives of children all around the country.

I want to really focus on the fact that this job may pay back your loans, but it's so much more than that. By becoming a teacher for these less fortunate kids, these graduates are changing their lives and giving them an education they may not have gotten the chance to have.

Crime Story Reporting

(2) Campus police are reticent to talk, but they released a press release last night stating that three guns and two pipe bombs were found in a student's dorm room, along with a scrapbook of newspaper clippings describing in detail how the Virginia Tech shootings were carried out. They suspect the student had similiar plans and say they are relieved to have discovered the plot before anyone got hurt. The Towerlight editor has assigned you to cover the story.


First of all, I'd try to get all of the information that I can, especially the bulleted items from Chapter 13. So far, there are no victims so that's out. I'd need to get the status of the investigation (suspects, charges, etc). If someone has been charged, I'd get all of their basic information, and if a single person has not been identified, I'd need to get any details on that person. For this specific case, I really want to know what dorm complex this student lives in, his/her major, hometown, and any significant history.

The most important thing to get (in my opinion) are the details of the crime. Everyone loves drama!

In this scenario, the police aren't talking very much, and Towson isn't looking for bad PR. Getting them to cough up the good stuff is going to be a challenge, but they aren't the only people I can go to. The Housing and Residence Life Staff (RA's, CC Workers, etc) are sure to know details as well.

I think some cool media components could include an interactive video on what exactly a pipe bomb is, because I don't even know and I'm the one who is covering the story. I also think that it would be good to publish some safety tips for college students.

Interview...ugh

Trying to get an interview with someone from Teach for America Baltimore has been a little bit of  pain. Interviews for my last story were so much easier to do. I knew all of the people personally, however, which I'm sure had a little something to do with it. 

I've been trying to get in touch with Omari Todd, who is the Executive Director of the Baltimore region. I read his bio and he seems like such a nice guy. He actually started out as a teacher and taught for four years. He didn't go to undergrad in Baltimore, but he got his master's at Johns Hopkins (clearly he's smart too).

As much as I'd like to talk to Omari personally, I'm not sure that it's going to happen very soon. I've only been shooting for him, but all I've done is left voicemails and send e-mails. I feel like this is kind of strange because when I clicked "contact" on the website, his name was the only one to show up. Shouldn't he be calling me back?!?!?

I've decided that if I don't hear anything from him tomorrow, I'm going to just ask for anyone who has some free time to speak with me if they can. I want to start making connections asap!

I'm kind of nervous for my interview. I hope I can go to meet with these people face to face instead of doing a phone interview. I can't stand talking on the phone about important things. I really like to see people's facial expressions and have their full attention.

I'm also nervous because I've never really done a serious interview with someone I didn't know at all. For my last story, my biggest stretch was the financial guy from Wachovia, and I've met him a bunch of times with my mom and he helped me set up a new savings account. 

Either way, I want to start getting these interviews done so I can pick an angle for my feature story and get this ball rolling. :)

Washington Post Field Trip

My trip to the Washington Post was SO great! About three hours, we sat in a conference with Rob Curley, the Vice President of Product Development. In most situations, sitting and listening to someone talk for that amount of time would put me to sleep. This time, however, it did the exact opposite. I was so intrigued by everything Rob was talking about. He gave us an overview of the Washington Post, washingtonpost.com, news websites from his hometown, and so much more.

We also talked about the future of news and technology, and how the two have already met and are growing side by side. Rob stressed the importance of news being available on cell phones – especially the iPhone. He strongly believes (and knows) that in a matter of time, everyone is going to have a phone with this kind of style. The Post has already recognized this and has made changes to their website. They have made their website iPhone-friendly, unlike some newssites that aren’t easily read on small screens.

One of my favorite features from the Post’s website is their dining guide. After a little bit of typing and the click of a mouse, sushi places that are open at midnight appear right before your eyes.  I think something like this should be created for the Towson area.

We also got a tour of the Washington Post offices as well as the washingtonpost.com offices. The Post is very typical, and it looks like it popped out of All the President’s Men. The website’s offices are completely different. The 4 levels look a lot like a Real World house! It was totally modern and I loved it.

Annie, Danielle, and I are very inspired to start our own blog-type of website for TU students. There is so much that we’re missing out on and we’ve got big plans to change it. ;-)

 Thanks so much to Rob Curley, Thomas Lieb, Stacy Spaulding, and the entire staff of the Post for giving me such a wonderful opportunity to learn such valuable information. I had a wonderful time!