I attended the Foster-Foreman Conference featuring David Finkel. I was really involved with his story because my family’s military background. He talked about being in the line of fire in Baghdad back in 2007 with US soldiers and how he believed the soldiers thought he was going to report on them in a negative way. After taking different Communication classes and listening to David’s conference I have heard different stories from both sides of the battle field. From actually fighting in it and from reporting the fighting. As I mentioned before, David had said the soldiers did not want him there reporting. Also I have heard stories from my family about how they weren’t annoyed by the reporters, rather they were kind of annoyed that they had to worry about their safety because the reporters are unarmed. They felt like they needed to protect them and that put them at risk for injury.
Some of the things that I took away from the conference was how David told everyone that we will face a lot of difficult things in our careers and that we need to make right decisions. Were all in school now and we just do the work our professors tell us to do but when we are actually out there in the field and something comes up we need to come up with decisions on the spot. Also we need to make sure that they are the right decisions. The other thing that David touched upon that I appreciated was that we need to “report first and write second.” That’s such a small phrase but it really defines being a journalist. You cannot just go and write different stories and make up quotes and the whole story in general. When you actually go out and get a story you become attached to it and you can write on it better and truthfully. That really reached out to me and I think if I’m successful one day I’ll quote him on that.