JEA Spring National Convention – Day 1

Posted on Apr 17, 2008 in Life, Volunteering | 0 comments

Once again I’m privileged to be chaperoning a group of young journalists a JEA/NSPA Spring convention. This spring the convention location is Anaheim, CA—also known as the city that exists because of Disney.

Thursday was a travel day. I met the group at school and we piled aboard the schoolbus after all the typical delays. After check-in, security, and an hour spent in SeaTac’s new shopping/”dining” extravaganza, we were in the air and in LA two hours later. Another long bus ride after that we were checked into the Sheraton Park Hotel, right across from the convention hotel, the Mariott.

We made it to the opening keynote and I’m glad we did. After a few speeches from the organizing committee and last year’s “journalist of the year” recipient, Louis Sinco took the stage.

Sinco snapped the iconic photograph of the Iraq war, circa 2004, the “Marlboro Marine.” At the time he was embedded with the Marines for the LA Times. There’s quite a bit of story about how the photo came to grace the cover of 150 newspapers shortly after he transmitted it, but I won’t go into that here. But, due to the popularity of the photo, Sinco’s editors at the LA Times sent him, a year and a half later, to Kentucky to follow-up with Lance Corporal Blake Miller. The former Marine was suffering from Post-Tramautic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) and Sinco, despite his journalistic integrity not to get involved with a story, intervened and took the suicidal Miller to a PTSD counseling center. All of this was documented in a 13-minute slideshow of Sinco’s photos with Miller’s voice-over. Pretty moving stuff.

Afterward we walked to Downtown Disney, the latest capitalistic extravaganza sponsored by the world’s richest mouse. We split up and ate at the various (overpriced) restaurants and checked things out. My favorite: the huge Lego store. Back to the hotel and bed, ready to attend sessions Friday.

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