I’m pleased to announce we left the College Media Advisers Conference in Washington, D.C., with a number of awards and accolades for IU Student Media. So without further adu, here is what we got from the Associated Collegiate Press:

- National Yearbook Pacemaker (give to only top 5 yearbooks in the country): Arbutus

- Yearbook best in show (+300 pages):  Arbutus

- 1st place Story of the Year – Editorial/Opinion: Andrew Shaffer for his column on the naming of Ora L. Wildermuth Intramural Center. Click here to view the column.

- 1st place for Best Photo – Sports: Ashley Wilkerson for her photograph of last year’s Little 500 crash. Click here to view and go to the 1:08 mark in the slideshow.

- 2nd place for Best Design – News spread: Mark Koenig

- Honorable Mention for Best Illustration: Nina Mehta

- 2nd place Adverstising – Classified: Indiana Daily Student Creative Staff

- Honorable Mention Special Edition Issue 4-year Paper: IDS for ‘Presidential Prelude’ issue on Oct. 19

Well we made it back in one peice somehow from our 5-day visit to our nation’s capitol. The last two days kept us really busy as Saturday we hit up an awards ceremony (I will make a post right after this with everthing we won) then went on a 3-hour night time tour of the main monuments in D.C. I know it sounds nerdy, but looking at all the history was awe inspiring for me. I probably could have sat at the Lincoln Memorial for days just staring at it and looking over at the Washington Monument and the rest of the city. I’ve decided I want to live there for the rest of life – once of course, I win the lottery so I can afford the housing.

Sunday we attended more awards, then we had the honor of meeting Don Hewitt, the lengendary producer and TV executive who also created CBS’ ‘60 Minutes’. He is without a doubt the coolest person I have ever met. He basically know everyone who is famous/powerful in the world. For a brief sample, he talked about his relationship with the Clintons and the one year he lived with Frank Sinatra. Yea, awesome. Anyways I’ll be posting the list of awards we received during the conference soon.

Alright sorry for the lack of updates, between crappy Internet connection here and a crazy schedule things have been a bit crazy. So myself and five other IDS staffers made it Wednesday to Washington D.C., for the Annual College Media Advisers conference, despite a lengthy flight delay and constant rain here in D.C.  So here is what has gone down so far:

Thursday: We had the opportunity to meet with ABC Chief Washington Correspondent and former Clinton Administration staffer George Stephanopoulos, with about a dozen other journalists for a Q and A session. Besides from noticing his remarkably shinny hair, it was interesting hearing about his experience making the cross from politics to media and the struggles involving that. Also it was interesting to hear how he plans coverage for his weekly TV show, such as debating whether to focus on the California fires or other topics for this weekend’s show. Later that day we visited the NY Times Washington office and talked with a couple editors about what they have been doing and their thoughts on the future of newspapers. They actually offered more optimistic views than most and said that while traditional reporting jobs will continue to drop, overall journalism jobs with the paper will probably rise, with new media positions keeping on being added.

Friday: We started out the day with a workshop with CNN’s Political Director of the Situation Room, and he offered intereting views on journalists remainig objective and non-partisan both at work and away from work. He said all CNN staffers are required to not contribute to poltical campaigns and not discuss their views in the public. After that, we trecked over to Capitol Hill, where we met Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh’s press secretary and were led on tour. For anyone who hasn’t been, seeing Capitol Hill was amazing and being able to see the Senate gallery and watching Senators such as Harry Reid talk was an interesting experience.

Alright that’s all I got right now, but hopefully I’ll be back at it tomorrow, and hopefully the IDS will announce any awards that we are up for this weekend. So with that good night from Washington, D.C.

In about 9 hours, myself and five other IDS staffers will be on a plane traveling to Washington D.C., for the 86th annual ACP/CMA National College Media Convention. While there we will be submitting several entries for awards to be announced later that week, and we will be attending several workshops and speeches that hopefully will lend some advice to improving our coverage.

Assuming I’ll have Internet connection there, I’ll try to update Deadline as the week progress with what we see and insights from several prominent figures in journalism that will be speaking there. So be sure to check back and look for those updates.

In today’s edition of the Indiana Daily Student we experimented with a new feature to tell a story in a more visual way. Our centerpiece package on page one and the entire page eight of Tuesday’s paper is devoted to a photo essay on volunteers working at Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, a Bloomington community food pantry, at the Hoosier Hills Food Bank.

Instead of using just one photo and then plenty text to tell the story, we used about seven photos and a small amount of text to do the same job. With a talented photo staff here, I feel this allows us to use an alternative way to report the news that is just as effective, if not more effective, than traditional stories. So check out the work done by our photographer, Jacob Kriese, and let us know what you think of this visual storytelling technique.

It looks like we corrected the problem and our poll on the front page of our Web site is up and running again. So please go ahead and vote for the question: Do you think the new sanctions imposed on IU mens basketball coach Kelvin Sampson are fair?

Depending on how many responses we get, we will publish the results in Wednesday or Thursday’s paper.

Well it’s a little before 9:30 a.m. and we have several reporters working a developing story regarding a shooting near Bloomington Hospital as police are trying to get in communication with the suspect holed up in an apartment.

I got a call a little after 8:30 a.m. saying there was a lot of chatter going over our police scanner here in the newsroom. I woke some people up to start on the story and I came immediately to the newsroom, where I am montoring the situation.

We have two reporters on route to the scene, so hopefully we will have more information coming as it develops. Check back here later for how we handled this breaking news situation.

In consecutive days we featured front page articles on the 2008 presidential election, and both were about the same candidate. While it’s always important to have – stealing from Fox News’ motto - fair and balanced coverage, we as journalists have to be even more aware of that when it comes to the hotly contested game of politics.

So far those who think we gave too much coverage to Ron Paul - a candidate who many still consider a longshot for the presidency – I wanted to give a few reasons for our coverage this week.

First, we covered him as opposed to anyone else these past two days, because there was an event near campus that featured many IU students in support of Paul. Second, much of Paul’s support is coming from grassroots campaigns on campuses around the country. We wanted to explore the reasons why this is occurring and the extent that is happening here at IU. Also it is important to take into account that one was a preview for an event and the latter was a cover of that same event. 

With still more than a year till the general election, I can only imagine we will be investigating more of the candidates’ views and how college students, especially at IU, are reacting to them.

Just quick post to let you know the poll on our Web site is down right now. We are working on the problem and will have it back up and working as soon as possible.

We are now taking ballots for our annual Best of Bloomington awards. We are looking for our IU readers to sound off on what their favorite bar, band, pizza, place to make out, ect. This is your chance to vote for what you love best about Bloomington, also earning an opportunity to win a pair of ticket to “Rent“ playing at the IU Auditorium.

To vote you can look for one of the yellow ballots around campus, or you can visit our Web site to submit your entry. The winners will be posted in our WEEKEND magazine.