Washington Conference

On Sunday night, not long after our arrival at George Mason, we were scheduled to hear a speech from Brian Lamb, the founder and CEO of C-SPAN. Because I was actually aware of Lamb’s accomplishments (an exception to my general ignorance towards the work of scheduled speakers), my anticipation for his appearance provided a good deal of excitement after a hectic day of driving and registration.

Unfortunately, Lamb’s speech involved little of him, well, speaking. The C-SPANer brought students from the audience to the stage and grilled them with vague questions along the lines of “What is journalism?” and “What is the future of journalism?” At first, it seemed like a good concept, but after the he brought up the third group of kids to provide what were basically the same awkward answers, I began to ask myself if this was really all he would be doing.

And it was, until the very end portion of his appearance, when students (including myself) asked Mr. Lamb questions that specifically called upon him to draw from and share his life and work experience.  And when Lamb actually spoke, he spoke well;  I learned quite a bit.

It was not Hearing Lamb speak in such an intimate environment could perhaps be a once in a lifetime experience.  I cannot help but be annoyed that the majority of his time was spent on students (who I will be spending time with for 5 days) stumbling over half-baked concepts of journalism.  Maybe he did it so that after the conference we can reflect on how many new ideas we have gained, and how much more eloquently we could now answer his questions.  Maybe (probably, even) it was a chance to see what future journalists think about the future of journalism.  Which is all well and good, but these are ideas that a slew of other speakers this week have spent a mere 10 minutes on.  When I go somewhere to hear Brian Lamb, I want to hear Brian Lamb.

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Lone tree in the woods

No lumberjack for miles

It’s OK, I guess

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Andrew Doerfler has been a reporter for The Devil’s Herald, Avon Grove High School’s newspaper, since 2007.  Recently, he also edited for the Herald.  In 2006, Andrew contributed to the “Scene” section of the Salesianum School newspaper, The Salesian, writing articles on recent concerts and album releases.  In addition to school newspapers, his articles have appeared in The Avon Grove Sun. He currently lives in West Grove, Pennsylvania, and is excited to be a part of the Washington Journalism and Media Conference.

Filed by sthubbins at 7:24 am under Uncategorized
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