From March 18-23 I stayed at one of the most prestigious hotels revolving around the world of journalism – the Watergate Hotel. Unfortunately, too many of today’s generation, my generation, do not even know what Watergate is – never mind know that it’s a hotel. But fortunately, the other 101 student journalists and I do. The Watergate Hotel was the location of the infamous scandal that was the eventual cause of President Richard Nixon’s resignation. The hotel was broken into by five men, who were later arrested, who were attempting to obtain information of the Democratic Nation Party.

Day 1: After a 4:00 P.M arrival, two students from separate flights both lost their luggage and we had a nice, let’s say, leisurely two hour stay at Washington Dulles International Airport. We met up with six other students arriving from California, Detroit, New Hampshire and South Carolina and then made our way to the hotel. Along with about ten others we were too late to leave for the restaurant (the other students were already on dessert and from what I heard our cheeseburgers and fries in the student lounge were better anyway.) From dinner, we broke the ice with some games, relaxed in the student lounge and went to bed.

Day 2: We departed on two busses (I was on bus 2 or ‘the deuce’ as we called it) for ESPN Zone where we had breakfast. After breakfast we sat in on the live taping of ‘Meet the Press’ with Tim Russert. It was an interesting show especially being anniversary of the war in Iraq. Russert was spectacular learning both sides of the argument. The first guest was General George Casey who was interviewed via satellite in Iraq. Russert made him ‘eat his words’ speculating on why the US has not pulled out of Iraq yet like he said they wanted to. His next guest was democratic congressmen John Murtha (Penn.) who shared his views on why the US should be pulling out of the war. After the show Russert met with us (there is usually no audience during the tapings) and answered some questions. One of the first things Russert said was “I know both sides so well, I’ve totally confused myself.” He does know both sides very well, making him such a good journalist. Later that night we received our medals from USA today founder Al Neuharth, ate dinner and toured Washington at night. Julie, our Close Up representative who guided us most of the trip, told a spectacular story. The bus driver shut off the lights everyone on the bus closed their eyes, Julie told us to imagine being in a war, with death all around us. We opened our eyes and looked to the right – the Arlington National Cemetery. Once again, we closed our eyes and she continued, describing the darkness and barely being able to make-out who the person to the right of you is but faintly seeing four soldiers – the Iwo Jima Memorial.

Day 3: We drove to the Freedom Forum building listened to speakers Betty Winston Baye, columnist and editorial writer The Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY, Judy Woodruff, journalist & former CNN anchor, Al Hunt executive director, Bloomberg News, John Seigenthaler Sr., founder, First Amendment Center & founding editorial director of USA Today. After lunch, John Milewski anchored the show Close Up with guest former US senator Thomas Daschle (S. Dakota) and journalist Helen Thomas. A little background on Thomas: Thomas covered every US president since John F. Kennedy and coined the line “Thank you, Mr. President.” Thomas closed press conferences with that line up until George Bush ended his own. The day after this conference, Bush called on Thomas for a question for the first time in his administration, but failed to answer her question and was seemingly upset during the continuation of the press conference (that’s good journalism). Both answered questions from the scholars such as “are you running for President” for Daschle (and he never actually day ‘no’). The Close Up show was aired on Fri. 24 at 7:00 P.M. on C-SPAN. Our last stop was a chilly riverboat dinner – when we finally arrived after we got lost – except the boat we ate dinner on had a broken motor and we moved to a smaller boat after dinner.

Day 4: This day was filled with a wealth of speakers including director of education programs, Radio and Television News Directors Foundation Carol Knopes, senior scholar from the First Amendment Center Charles Haynes, St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press sports writer Sean Jensen, 2004-05 free spirit scholar Cyrus Moussavi, correspondent from WTTG-TC, Washington DC Meredith Mendez, assistant city editor from The Arizona Republic Kristen Go and director/international exhibits of the Newseum Susan Bennett. After these conferences we arrived at the USA Today for lunch (yes, we did a lot of eating) and then toured the facilities before a Q&A session with Money reporter Julie Appleby, Life reporter Ann Oldenburg and editor Ken Paulson. Before dinner that night we went to Freedom Sings – ‘a multimedia presentation that tells the story of banned and censored music.’ This presentation was more like a concert and was tremendous fun telling us the history of censored songs – some that may not make sense, others that do.

Day 5: After fattening up on breakfast the two Free Spirit honorees, Sean Tuohey, founder, Playing for Peace and Penn. State football coach Joe Paterno spoke along with the Free Spirit of the Year Eileen Collins. PARADE editor Lee Kravitz and 2003 Free Spirit of the Year Greg Mortenson also spoke. The final hours included the Free Spirit ceremony which drew an attendance of over 400 people. This is when the top Free Spirits were announced. The winners were Catherine Cheney from California and Chris Sopher from Virginia.

Overall, this was a tremendous experience which I am grateful to have participated in and to have received the Free Spirit award. I owe the award to this newspaper and the experience it brought me because I would have never had the chance to test my writing skills in the journalistic world, Bird’s Eye View adviser, Ms. Nancy Dandurand, who urged me to apply for the award and who has prepared me to continue my education in journalism, my staff which has helped me along greatly with the newspaper and Ms. Carol Hoyle for sparking my interest in journalism.