2009 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism

It's 11 a.m. in Boston, N.Y. I've just spent the past five hours sitting in a rented van with two other Ithaca College students, Erin Geismar and Tricia Nadolny, and our advisor, Michael Serino. The only time I can recall stretching my legs, or being awake at all, was at the one pit stop we made a few hours back where I decided to change into my jeans. Wouldn't want to show up wearing sweatpants to a conference with "Harvard" in the title. But jeans, I guess they're okay.

Anyways, I'm going to be making a few blog posts in the near future about the topics discussed during the conference. No, it's not exactly "independent media" but it's literary journalism - some of the closest prose with independent thought found in mainstream media today. So for now, I'll start from the very beginning.

Connie Shultz, the Keynote Speaker on Friday afternoon, was the breath of fresh air I was looking for. I was ready for a crowd of fearful journalists crying out for an end to the "doomsday" they see the end of the newspaper industry being. Of course, they were all there, and at times almost crying into the microphone. But Shultz made sure to keep the conversation positive during her speech, "Why you still matter." 

She took a photo of the crowd, inviting them to cheer in response to her question: Who in this room is sick and tired of hearing about constant job loss in journalism? She sent the photo to www.poynter.org as a personal memo to Romenesko.