Well, I had gotten all excited yesterday, because I thought I was going to have the opportunity to sneak on to USC’s campus and attend the Annenberg School’s discussion with New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau titled “Reporting the War on Terror: How Much does the Public Really Need to Know?” Apparently Mr. Lichtblau won the Pulitzer for National Reporting in this year for his stories on the fine boundary line between protecting National Security and fighting terrorism and protecting civil liberties. (I wonder what college he went to…). Unfortunately, even after looking at the date on the printout I made during my regularly scheduled intern time at City Hall, multitasking between looking for press releases and clipping and organizing newsclips about the city councilman I volunteer for, I hadn’t realized the date was not for the next day, Wednesday, but for that day, Tuesday. Great…


The topic of discussion, which, hopefully, I will be able to, at least, get a transcript of from somewhere, got me to thinking about www.back-to-iraq.com blogger, Christopher Albritton, who solicited funds for a move to Iraq and provide coverage of the ‘situation’ (my words, not his) going on there. I seem to be fairly behind in the blogosphere, I heard and was inspired by this, a few months ago, but apparently the actual event took place in 2004. How behind I am. I was amazed at hearing his story. To know that an independent journalist, a blogger, can make somewhat of a living, solely writing for the web is inspiring, especially when it leads to gigs with established, old line media outlets. But it seems that most of the reportage entails at-home observations from someone of real or imagined expertise or research via telecommuting, perhaps even trekking to some event on your own dime (especially if the blogger lives in a metro area like New York or LA or DC) and reporting from there, but to have enough readers, loyal followers who would pitch in their hard earned bills so that you might go off to some far away land and tell them of the goings on there, to me, is amazing. I am emboldened, exhilarated. I am probably really naive.