Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,000 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 17 trips to carry that many people.

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Buildings loomed overhead as we stepped out of the metro station in Chinatown on our first night in Washington D.C. Although it was late — and a weeknight! — cars zipped by and the city buzzed with the faint crackle of electricity lighting up billboards and restaurant signs.  Goodbye Arcata — our D.C. experience had begun.

Over the next five days we toured CNN and NPR, explored national monuments and attended a two-day political journalism conference hosted by the Fund for American Studies.

Here are a few of my reactions from our whirlwind trip:

CNN

We lucked out on our CNN tour guide, Jay McMichael. A big thanks to our professor Victoria Sama for setting that up. McMichael’s a senior photojournalist who has been working on Capitol Hill for over 20 years. Needless to say, he knows CNN like the back of his hand.  The fast-paced tour he took us on snaked through CNN’s various departments — one minute we were sitting around a conference table for a Q&A with State of the Union’s Candy Crowley and the next we were shaking hands with Wolf Blitzer on a commercial break during a live taping of the Situation Room. So cool!

NPR

Thanks to Josh Aden, an International Studies major and past Lumberjack News Editor who joined us on the trip, we were able to set-up a quick NPR tour before our conference.  So, you know that warm, cozy feeling you get when you listen to NPR? That’s exactly how the Washington D.C. bureau feels. Seriously, you want to work in a place where the cozy sweater is standard workplace attire and the smell of toast and coffee perpetually waft through the air? NPR is the place for you. A highlight of the tour — led by our fantastic tour-guide Alan Stone — was seeing the studios of Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation where we got to listen in as reporters taped their shows for later in the day.

Institute for Political Journalism Conference

Conferences have always been hard for me to sit through. But I have to give credit to the Fund for American Studies — this conference was both engaging and informative. Not only did we hear from note-worthy journalists and media experts from organizations like The Atlantic Magazine, Gallup.com, ABC News, The Washington Post and Politico, the speakers covered a wide range of topics. Everything from religion in reporting and the utilization of social media to the then-breaking Herman Cain scandal were discussed.

Lessons Learned (Heads up journalism majors, this section is for you!):

• If you want to make it the news industry you have to be well-rounded. That means knowing how to shoot video, tweet a reaction and record a podcast — all while doing the standard pen-and-pad reporting.
• Learn to write well. I think every person we spoke with said this. If you can write well, you will always be able to find a job.
• This isn’t an industry that tolerates laziness, or cutting-corners. In other words, if you don’t go out there and chase the story down, someone else will.  Also, maintain integrity in your reporting. A misquote or incorrect fact will haunt you forever.
• Network. You’ll probably end up getting a job because you know someone who knows someone.
• Keep up on social media. If you think you have it mastered, you’re lying to yourself because there is probably some new technology out there that has launched and you don’t even know about it yet. A few of the big sites right now are Facebook (Duh!), Twitter, StumbleUpon and Tumblr.

Before I stop typing, I wanted to make sure to include a big thanks to the Journalism Department and the HSU Clubs Coordinating Council for helping us get to Washington D.C. A big shout out goes to Maclyn ‘Mac’ McClary, emeritus professor of journalism and mass communication, for the generous contribution he made to the Journalism Club for both this year and next. Thanks Mac!

Before the J-Club took off for Washington D.C. our professor Marcy Burstiner gave us some food for thought. She told us if we seriously want to work and live in D.C, we better be willing to live politics, all day every day.

At the time, I thought that pretty self-evident. Of course it’s all about politics. But after spending five days there for the Institute on Political Journalism conference, I know what she means.

As we landed, the Herman Cain scandal was breaking. Everybody was talking about it. It became the focus of much of the conference, as well as our tour of CNN.

If there’s one overarching theme I learned over the weekend, it’s know and embrace politics. Know who’s leading the Republican presidential race in the polls. Get fired up about John Boehner’s latest spending cuts plan. Fire off facts about the Keystone XL pipeline. Compare and contrast the Occupy and Tea Party movements.

Here’s a few other tidbits I picked up, at the conference and while touring D.C.:

-Learn to love social media, especially Twitter. Multiple speakers at the conference talked about Twitter’s usefulness as a personalized news aggregator, a place to find story ideas, promote your own stories and work, and make connections.

-Work on writing well. Everyone we talked to said writing was by far the most important skill they used in their news or media jobs, whether broadcast, radio or print. They said many other skills can be taught on-the-fly, but not good writing.

-”Stack your blog roll,” use Google Reader, and generally consume the news and information. Many presenters talked about the importance of this, to know what their colleagues are doing and provide context for future stories.

-There’s no recipe for success, at least not in political journalism. Lymari Morales from Gallup.com had a master’s in public policy from Harvard before she got her job. Others had advanced J-school degrees from Columbia and Northwestern. One of the top political reporters at CNN we talked to had become a lawyer, only to transition into journalism. Jared Keller, social media manager and an editor at The Atlantic, got his job shortly after completing his undergrad degree. Others, like Kenneth Vogel of Politico (who I found to be one of the most inspiring) had worked his way up in the newspaper industry all over the country before moving to D.C. Vogel said just writing a really solid political blog could land someone a job (and had, at Politico).

-Internships are available for college students, even at the big news outlets. Check out opportunities at CNN, NPR, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Atlantic Wire, National Journal Hotline and Governing.com.

From the moment we arrived in the city, it was clear that Washington D.C. is not Arcata. The bustling city boasts the most suit-wearing batch of people I have ever witnessed — probably because much of the U.S. Capital is employed by the government — and the sheer number people and sights to see are potentially endless. While we did get a chance to attend the Institute of Political Journalism conference and take a whirlwind tour of the city, the city certainly warrants another visit down the line.

On our first day in D.C., a few of us visited the a couple of Smithsonian museums and the Library of Congress. Later that day, we toured CNN courtesy of Professor Vicky Sama’s friend and colleague. We met Wolf Blitzer, host of the Situation Room, and talked with several other reporters and journalists about various tips, stories and the general nature of the evolving industry. The face-paced, competitive nature of the CNN was almost too much to take when compared to that of our small media industry on the North Coast, but it was great to see how a 24-hour news network in full swing.

“Thanks for bringing Humboldt State into the Situation Room.” -  Wolf Blitzer

Friday and Saturday, the two days of our conference, included presentations by Lymari Morales (managing news editor of Gallup.com), members of the National Journal Hotline, Jared Keller (associate editor at the Atlantic magazine), Karen Travers (Washington-based correspondent for ABC NewsOnes) and Kenneth P. Vogel of Politico among others. I found many of the speakers techniques and tips for covering politics to echo much of what we have learned in the journalism program at HSU. For instance, I think many of us knew everything Morales of Gallup.com said because of Professor Mark Larson’s Empirical Research class. Needless to say, air high-fives were abundant. Overall, I left with a more developed sense of how to cover local and regional politics, how to utilize social media in the newsroom, and a plethora of small tips and tricks of the trade.

Before the conference, we toured the nearby NPR studios. It was also very interesting, but much different than CNN. We watched some broadcast recordings, took a look at some other their equipment and talked with several employees. Not as busy as CNN, not as fancy and much more monotone. Oh NPR.

On Saturday, we also took a tour of the Newseum — a new museum solely dedicated took the history and development of the journalism industry. It was basically a walking tour of Professor Marcy Burstiners’ History of Mass Communication class. It was a great museum with exhibits on 9/11 coverage, the evolution of broadcast journalism, newspapers from around the world and many other topics.

We spent Sunday touring the National Mall and taking in the sights. The weather was absolutely gorgeous — autumn was in the air and in the trees — and the monuments were a sight to behold. We also spent time at covering a protest outside the White House and throughout the streets of Washington D.C. (the 12,000 environmentalists didn’t seem too happy about the Keystone XL pipeline).

Washington D.C. gave us a chance to talk and network with both inspiring and aspiring journalists from across the nation and, at least for me, left me with a greater appreciation of the role of the press and a more optimistic outlet for the direction the industry is currently heading.

Business Journalism Conference 2010

Humboldt State University Senior journalism major and staff writer for Times-Standard, Matt Drange, bit into an urban farmed apple at the Brooklyn farmers market and said it was the best apple he’d ever tasted. Drange, Kevin Bunch and I enjoyed the sweet taste of the “big apple” during our visit for the 2010 Collegiate Business Journalism Conference at the City University of New York (CUNY) that took place Oct. 21-23.

Before the conference began we met with instructor Marcy Burstiner who set up exclusive tours for us at Associated Press, New York Times and AOL. AP’s Digital News Designer Sean McDade is a long time friend of Mrs. Burstiner and he led us through the newsroom. We sat in on AP’s morning news editorial meeting where we heard about the top news topics for the day before they were published. It was a great experience to see how the AP newsroom worked and it was comforting to see that they worked in similar ways as the journalism students at HSU; one person was scrambling at the last minute to pitch a story to her editor, one was doodling before her turn to speak and another cracked a joke about munchies after a top story video was played that showed 134 tons of marijuana being burned in Mexico.

Sports Page Designer at New York Times, Ben Hoffman, greeted us in the lobby  and took us on an extensive tour of the building. Highlights of the tour included discovering that Hoffman is an HSU alumnus and has a NorCal sticker at his desk, examining all the Pulitzer Prizes that the Times has won over the years, learning about how the staff works differently than other newspapers, hearing stories about people getting arrested for climbing the building and lastly, Mrs. Burstiner treating us to a gourmet lunch at the newspaper’s incredibly decadent buffet style restaurant that featured an endless selection of gourmet dishes.

At AOL we met with Mrs. Burstiner’s friend Buck Wolfe. He specializes in weird and fun news and his desk was covered in toys and goofy gadgets. The inside of the AOL building was colorful and artistic looking. We learned that AOL has lots of money to work with and they’re exploring many new ideas to bring up ratings.

The Collegiate Business Journalism Conference began at CUNY immediately after we checked  into our luxurious rooms at the Marriott.  The doorman  had a bachelors degree in journalism; I plan on using my journalism credentials when I graduate. The pillow top of the mattress was thicker than my entire floor futon that I sleep on in Humboldt. I danced in the elevator to the song by Alicia Keys and Jay-Z  called New York:

“In new york, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, There’s nothing you can’t do, now your in New York, these streets will make you feel brand new, these lights will inspire you, lets hear it for New York, New York, New Yor ork!”  In case you were wondering, our hotel  featured roughly 40 floors!

The first speaker of the night was Allan Sloan, the senior editor for Fortune magazine. He gave a lecture on entrepreneurial journalism and his success with it. He talked about “What Washington isn’t telling us about the economy,” his latest article published in the magazine. He answered questions about business journalism and talked about how happy he was that he paid for his kids to go to college.

On Friday morning, we met in the News Corp building and toured the new Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Barron’s and MarketWatch newsrooms. The building had overwhelming amounts of news and computer screens. The workers were all jacked up on coffee, and it was the fastest paced newsroom that we visited on our trip. Our tour guide emphasized that in the world of stock exchanges timing is crucial and that investors paid thousands of dollars to have memberships so that they could receive news feeds before anyone else. Some investors even paid extra to have their portals on site so that they wouldn’t risk any time delays because for them every millisecond matters.

Next, we went to CUNY and a panel of recent college graduates working in business journalism introduced themselves and answered questions. The next panels were internship coordinators that gave us tips on how to apply for jobs. After lunch there was a discussion about deciding on a first job and interviews for internships began. The interviews were great learning experiences for all three of us, and we had the opportunity to try and sell ourselves to some of the best business publications in the world: Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones, Reuters, Business Insider, American City Business Journals, AP and more! Friday’s conference finished with a panel discussing the topic of new entrants in Business Journalism. In the evening all of us journalism students were treated to an Italian dinner at Trattoria Trecolori.

The conference ended on Saturday with discussions on business reporting for broadcast, finding stories in SEC filings, local business reporting and finding information about private companies. We were honored to have the opportunity to attend the conference and learned lots.  Besides the conference, the highlights of the trip for me were spending leisure time visiting some of the famous New York attractions, witnessing crazy city people commit random acts on the streets  and subways, touring Columbia College’s J school, developing relationships with other journalism students, visiting all the awesome newsrooms, learning how to navigate through New York by myself on the subways and too many good things to list. This trip was an all around success!

Thank you Sean McDade, Marcy Burstiner, Ben Hoffman, Buck Wolfe,  everyone at the conference that taught us valuable information, Matt Drange, Kevin Bunch,  journalism peers from other schools,  airplane pilots and everyone that contributed to the epic journalism trip.

By Matt Drange

Four people from Humboldt County are apparently easy to spot in New York City, because our guide Ben Hoffman had no trouble finding us in the lobby of the Gray Lady’s new digs.

He took us up the elevator, which unlike the one in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had no buttons inside. We got to see the enormity of the newsroom, which spans multiple floors in the center of the building.

Hoffman, who happens to be an HSU alum and former editor at the Times-Standard in Eureka, is a sports page designer. He told us what a typical day is like at the newspaper, and showed us the gong on each floor that signals a meeting when struck.

On a floor above the newsroom is the Pulitzer Prize display, which is quickly filling up. “The Times takes home an award just about every year,” said Hoffman. The newspaper honors its award-winning journalists with a hallway to show off their work. Then, it was lunch at the top-notch cafeteria, just one of the many benefits for journalists at the best paper in the country.

Prof. Marcy Burstiner and Kevin Bunch admire the Pulitzer Prize hallway at The New York Times.

We watched as editors from business to international to sports discuss the top stories of the day. They showed video of the top story – the government-ordered burning of 134 tons of marijuana in Mexico. One editor joked that the follow-up would be the 100 tons of Doritos that the group would need afterward.

[A big thank you to Sean McDade, the AP digital media designer, who made the tour possible.]

The morning editorial board meeting at the Associated Press.

The next five days would be a blur of exploring, from the streets of the city to the newsrooms of the biggest journalism organizations in the world, and just about everything in between. The following are just a few of the excerpts from my notebook, and why I can’t wait to go back.

- Matt Drange

Down Under the Brooklyn Bridge

the Subway system in the big apple reminds me of veins pumping blood cells to every limb and organ of this living, breathing metropolitan creature. Each person is so unique in their dress and actions, and they each add the necessary elements that make New York so iconic. Taking the A train from JFK to Manhattan is very eye opening. A mariachi band jumps on at one stop, plays their bit, and jumps off at the next. Before I can fully understand what is happening the moment has passed. This city lives in moments. If you blink you miss out on a train performance, a street crossing light,  or a business merger. It’s no wonder this city never sleeps. The people never seem to.

Every day spent in New York City is a day not waisted. There is no limit to how much you can accomplish in a day. With everything just a hop skip and a subway transfer away, why would you not take advantage? In one day I start in East Harlem where I am staying, walk through central park, visit Columbia University and tour the upper west side, explore greenwich village, shop 5th avenue, marvel at cathedrals on Madison, get up close and personal with gramercy and east village, sit in remembrance at ground zero in the financial district,  and rest in awe under the lights of time square. In all, about 40 miles of the city covered in eighteen hours. I wake up 5 hours later feeling like I missed out on something. The cities sleep deprived mentality begins to rub off on me.

I have a long week ahead, and the business journalism conference I came to NYC for hasn’t even begun.

An editor for Dow Jones business wires grabbed our group to take us on the Disneyland-esque  tour of the building. He shared with us important tips of the trade.

• Foreign Language is key in business journalism
  • Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian (most needed in the industry)
  • Farsi, Arabic (developing languages they are looking for)
• Investment banking writers majored in investment banking and learned journalism on the job rather than at J-school
• Everything in this trade is measured in milliseconds — being the first to get it out can make or break your career

From there, we went to the CUNY Journalism School, neighbors with the New York Times new office. We learned common mistakes people make during interviews. The editors of Reuters and Dow Jones informed everyone that students from some of the best graduate schools in New York made major mistakes when interviewing with them and gave us some pointers on what not to do.

Although we all felt nervous before our interviews the tips that we received were a huge help. The key to interviewing is to do your homework on the publications you’re interviewing with. Don’t ever tell an interviewee that you want the job because it would be convenient for you, or because they are hiring. They don’t care!

You need to tell them why they should care about you and actually go through the first sentence of your cover letter. No matter how much you think you can do the job, it doesn’t matter if you can’t show that you have experience and knowledge.

That’s it for now, we’re off to dinner at an Italian restaurant and then to see where the night takes us. More to come soon,

- Kevin Bunch, Dylan Bauman and Matt Drange