First byline!

I haven't written in a few days because I spent most of Wednesday night reading CNN's Anderson Cooper's autobiography and yesterday was busy at the Post, so I collapsed pretty early last night. Sorry! I'll fill you in.

Wednesday was a bit disappointing, because everyone was busy on the phone with the Secret Service and other inauguration people, so I was at a loss for what to do. I can't really help someone make a phone call and no one around me seemed to be heading out for interviews. Every time I offered to help, they didn't have much to say. I did, however, meet a great guy in the Metro section named Mike Ruane who got me set up to help cover the inaugural parade dress rehearsal on Sunday. He was so helpful! He was really upset that we hadn't met earlier because he had just gotten back from a tour/interview at Ford Theatre, just where I wanted to tour last week on my own and didn't have time! Mike also had a couple ideas for solo stories for me. Then I got in touch with a court reporter to shadow him on a homicide sentencing for today and then... spent a lot of time reading news online.

So I promised myself that Thursday wouldn't be another Wednesday. I was set to finally take charge of my Post experience. I stopped in to say hi to Dana Priest and right away she asked what I had been writing. Then she suggested I pitch my own story ideas, because that's the "only way to get noticed" and establish myself. I guess I knew I could pitch a story idea, but I never thought that they'd take my idea seriously or trust me enough to write a story entirely by myself, especially because I've barely been there for a week and am only going to be there for three weeks. This is the Washington Post, after all, and since no one had even mentioned suggesting story ideas, I didn't think it was a viable option. But of course, why couldn't I pitch a story idea? Dana really flipped the switch for me, and even gave me a few ideas for another angle on the inauguration. She and I are going for lunch sometime soon, but she's working on a "big project," which to me sounds like something weird's going on with the Pentagon/CIA (her beat). So her schedule has been pretty erratic and soon I'm supposed to give her a list of dates that work for me.

Anyway, so I went to my desk, scoured the list of inauguration stories budgeted and brainstormed like hell. Finally, I sent Chris a text message and asked him for ideas. He suggested the global impact of the inauguration, and bingo! The environmental impact of having millions of people in D.C. What would I do without him? There has to be some issues there with all of the extra electricity, the extra garbage, water use, waste production, the millions of extra feet trampling the National Mall... so I pitched the idea to my editor and he LOVED it! So he told me to look into it, see what I could dig up and get back to him. He seemed excited, so I checked in with a couple of regular reporters to find some ideas for which sources to contact. The environmental reporter was also excited and seemed impressed that he hadn't thought of the idea himself, and he gave me this huge list of people to call.

The only thing is that on Thursday, as soon as I got back from lunch, David (who sits next to me) said to me, "Hey, Janie, what are you working on? Do you want to team up on a story?" Who can say no to that? So we set out on Pennsylvania Avenue, interviewing business owners with properties overlooking the inaugural parade route to find out who's throwing the big parade-watching parties. That article will be up next week! Then we were walking through Pershing Park to cross Penn., and I do a double take. McLean Bennett, who I work with at The Spectator (our student newspaper), is walking on the sidewalk! He had flown in to D.C. from Wisconsin to volunteer at an elementary school with his church's youth group! How random! I tried calling him later to set up a coffee date but couldn't get a hold of him. I also saw a big motorcade with police and black SUVs drive by heading to the White House, so maybe it was Obama! But the windows were tinted, so I couldn't see. But even though this assignment will be a fun story to write, it also meant I didn't have any time yesterday afternoon to look into my pet project, the environmental story.

That was my goal for today, but I think I'll devote most of Monday to it instead. Because I was doing follow-up interviews for the party story until lunch, and then after lunch I met one of the court reporters, Keith Alexander (who sometimes makes me giggle to myself because I think of the Canadian beer, Alexander Keith's, which Nick MacDougall always compared to "reindeer piss"), at the city courthouse. It was a pretty rough case, and really emotional. The defendant, Mike Dickerson, ended up with a 15-year sentence for the first-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend. Her family wasn't satisified though, especially because still no one knows where her body is and they just want that bit of closure after 12 years. I interviewed the family after the hearing, so I thought I might get a contributing line at the end of the article, but I'm getting a shared byline!! Awesome! I'll post that tomorrow once they put it on their Web site.

Moral of the story: Yesterday and today were my first actually busy days! Three cheers for that! These last two weeks are going to be awesome.