By Christine Heinrichs
Our beat dinner, Whither Journalism: Emerging Directions, go off to a great start. Thank goodness for Amy Gahran and her iPhone, which got us directions and guided us down the street. The valet helped, too.
The Blues BBQ Co. welcomed us, setting us aside from the rest of the dining area. However, the music was so loud, we could barely communicate even with those closest to us. Kristin Choo distributed folders of the material she had assembled for the event, background on nonprofit groups funding journalistic enterprises and other avenues to economically sound ways to practice our craft.
As Amy said, we wouldn't be much good as journalists if we couldn't cope with the unexpected. We chatted among ourselves on the subject, and any others that came up. My dinner partners were Mary Simms, former television reporter and presently a media relations rep for the EPA; Dave Poulson, associate director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, and Clint Wilder of Clean Edge, an online research company, http://www.cleanedge.com/. Having an evening to get to know these colleagues better without having to address an agenda beyond eating was just what we needed.
Great food! I stayed with the chicken dumpling soup, the special fried potatoes, fried okra and creamed succotash. We sampled a fried pickle. Who knew it could be such a guilty pleasure?
Mary is based in San Francisco, just north of my home on California's Central Coast. I look forward to getting together with her socially in the future. I hope our relationship will help me in the event that I cover a story involving the EPA in the future.
Curtis Brainard, science and environment media editor for Columbia Journalism Review, was at a table too far for voice to carry, but I was thrilled to chat with him on the walk back to the hotel. CJR does a great job of keeping us honest and humble. It's witty, too. That New York cachet hasn't lost its attraction for this Jersey girl.'
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