I'm here in the "Media Center and Spin Alley" at Howard University for tonight's Presidential Forum moderated by Tavis Smiley. I'm covering this along with Professor Kim Pearson for Blogher and our own sites. This has been great fun already. I got here really early, and after a brief bit of confusion over parking, I jumped on a golf cart that happened by, and hitched a ride up to the Blackburn Center on the Howard Campus where I got my big old press pass. I got a rush from it, I have to admit. I almost cried. It's so embarrassing sometimes, how my tear ducts are tied to my visceral experiences and emotional reactions of every sort, but it is a good signal for how right or wrong things are. This has felt very right so far.
I made it back to my car with my press credentials without incident, and moved it up to a lot really close to Blackburn. I met up with Liza Sabater in the parking lot, and she introduced me to Susie Madrak outside. I'd checked out her site already from the list of bloggers and had been to Liza's many times through previous Blogher events, so it was nice to meet people right away. We had dinner together, joined by Maegan "La Mala" Ortiz. It's been worth the trip already - interesting women and good conversation. We even got to tell a couple of cameramen from CNN what a blog was - they said they didn't think they'd ever seen one.
You can find the feed for tonight here on the Mediabloggers Website. Check out the updates from the people who are here writing with me.
We have one large monitor in the middle of the room and two really small ones on either side. The Forum is in an auditorium on campus, so the press had to be located in another building. The pre-show just started, it appears, and a quartet of men are singing..."The Star-Spangled Banner" so far, and a couple of other songs I don't recognize. The President of PBS is speaking now. I'm going to regroup for a minute.
Comments