Day 4 (Tues., Oct. 18)

ZZZZZZZZZ!!!!

I knew staying up to 12:30 last night was bad. I didn't have the energy to wake up early and do my run today. Wow! I am getting old. Boooo!!!!

I had to be up early today and thanks to Clayton's cell phone going off, I was able to get up on time. I am glad his cell phone went off because I could have overslept on the most important day of the internship. I must have hit snooze on the alarm because I never heard it. I must have been real tired because not even the loud noise of the alarm nor Clayton's sleep-talking were able to wake me up. I quickly got ready and headed down to the convention w/ about 20 minutes to kill.

I headed to the ballroom where everyone who cares about journalism had their eyes on. Even people across the country were tuning to C-SPAN to see the person who was to appear in front of the SPJ Convention. It was none other than Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter that spent 85 days in jail because she did not want to reveal a source. She's a great example of what everyone in SPJ stands for. We want to keep our rights as journalists and as the so-called "government's watchdog". Her heroic stand in court should be admired by all journalists.

W/ a big name as Miller in the hall, the room was filled w/ all kinds of media. In fact, I bumped into Jae Hong, a CSUN student who is currently working on a nine-month job w/ the Associated Press in Las Vegas. It was cool to see him because he is the prime example of what CSUN photography is and could be. He, Jason Williams and myself have been said, by a CSUN professor, to be among the top photography students that have come through CSUN in the past five years. So, the fact that he is making it out in the professional world and that my professor compares me to Jae and Jason means a lot to me.

After the Miller talk it was back to more workshop coverage. I am not so thrilled about shooting workshops, but it's part of the job. I did find some free time to go to Jeremy and Joshua's room to see the view of The Strip that Jeremy kept on talking about. It turned out to be a nice view.

I had a cool side assignment today that kept me in focus at the workshops. I was to find Mac McKerral, last year's SPJ president, who has been an instrumental part of SPJ for 13 years. Mac was awarded tonight at the SPJ President's Reception Banquet as the winner of the Wells Key Award. It's perhaps the most important awards in SPJ and the group of those who have won it is amazing.

Mac McKerral.

The coolest thing about shooting the Wells Key recipient during the day is that there is only three people in The Working Press who know who the winner is. It's a small number of people outside of TWP office that
know who the winner is. So, I was in "the know" today and I was to make photos of him throughout the day w/o making it too obvious. The good thing is that I met Mac last year in New York and he wasn't surprised I
was shooting photos of him. That helped. Above is Mac during the business meeting. Here are some photos I shot during the business meeting:

This woman had other type of "business" to take care of as she gave herself a manicure during the meeting.

Emily quickly made her way back to the newsroom after making a photo for her "relaxing in Vegas" photo essay.

After the meeting I went to the President's dinner where they handed out all kinds of prestigious awards, including the Wells Key. Again, I caught someone talking about the newspaper and she happened to be reading a page where two of my photos were published. I love that feeling. Below is when Mac found out he was the Wells Key recipient.

At the banquet I felt a little sad. Being that I will be graduating in the next eight months, I will no longer attend an SPJ convention like I had the last two years. Next year in Chicago, I will be an alumni of my
university and also of TWP. So, as I worked on my final assignment for TWP, I felt bad. In fact, after I turned in my photos. I headed back to the dinner to try to make even more photos. There, Joanne told me that I should
not worry about making any more photos because the pages were on their way to the printer and we were done!
I couldn't just walk away just because the newspaper was put to bed. I stayed and continued to shoot the event. After all, I wanted to see the reaction on Mac's face when he found out he was the Wells Key
winner.

I closed out the night by doing something that I came to do: network. I talked w/ Reggie Stewart (pictured above), one of the top recruiters for Knight Ridder newspapers. I met him last year and I love his interest in TWP. He is
always around looking for young talent. Today, I felt honored when I bumped into him in the hall outside of the convention. He had read my student notebook and paid attention to what I wrote. He had also seen
my photos and he said he liked them. So, as I cleaned up my mess from the make-shift newsroom on Diamond 1 in the Aladdin, I handed out my resume and portfolio to Reggie. I feel good. I feel sad that this is
coming to an end. I feel lucky to be here. Maybe I should go down to the casino and play on a table for the first time this week since I am feeling so lucky.
Hmmmm. Maybe not. After all, I want to close out the internship knowing I was lucky to be here.

This has been a rough couple of days. You can ask the SPJ member below all about it as he showed the signs of being tired while attending an SPJ convention.

Inside the expo room the only thing that was left was some trash as representatives of many journalism companies picked up and went home. There was a sign that read "will be back", it's perhaps saying that the company's representatives will be back next year in Chicago.

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