Sunday I made the journey to Reno, Nevada.
It took an hour to get off the tarmac at Kansas City International Airport due to a thunderstorm, which of course meant I missed my connecting flight to Reno from San Francisco. At least on the flight to San Francisco, I met a cool guy from the Kansas City area. I will talk more about him later, though. He really has nothing to do with this institute.
After the resulting 2-hour delay, I got to Reno and settled into my hotel, which is the Silver Legacy Resort and Casino. I have a room to myself, and it is awesome! The only downside is the wireless Internet costs in the hotel, which has thrown a kink in my blogging. So how am I posting now? I’ll get to that in a minute.
Sunday evening for the opening ceremony, we had a meal and heard from Melanie Sill, the editor of the Sacramento Bee.
Then this morning we walked to the University of Nevada for the class to begin, which is how I am posting now. This place, the Reynolds School of Journalism, as Wi-Fi.
So today we have done a lot of things. We discussed the future of the news industry, though we didn’t come up with a solution. It was a good conversation, however. Then we discussed the services the American Society of News Editors offers high school journalism programs and how those services can be utilized. I’ve got some good ideas now.
We also talked about motivating students, which was cool and spurred a few more thoughts forward.
However, the most interesting and exciting part for me was we got split up into groups. See, we are going to produce an online publication over the course of these two weeks. Everyone will produce at least two pieces, so since there are more than 30 people attending this institute, that will mean a site with more than 60 articles about Reno.
It’s going to be sweet! I can’t wait to get started. By this time tomorrow, we should all know which sections of the website we’ll be working for. Then we can decide on story assignments and get to work on things. It will feel good to get back to my roots. I miss reporting.
I will provide more information about our project as it unfolds. Not a lot of progress has been made with it yet, but the foundation has been put down.
I’m meeting a lot of great people. It’s already proving to be a great experience. I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend.
For now, though, I must run. We are getting ready to go on a tour of UNR. I will try to post pictures tomorrow, as well as update you all on what’s happening.
