By: Emily Delgado
One thing about the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is that it will make sure students get a well-rounded, hands-on education.
One example is a trip sponsored by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC) that allowed 11 students, including myself, to explore the First Amendment in Washington D.C. We were accompanied by visiting associate professor Brett Johnson.
It sounded too good to be true, — three days in the nation’s capital during spring break! A dream for any First Amendment nerd, such as myself, and it was just that. What made it even more fun was as a student employee with the CLAS Marketing and Communications team, I was able to document the trip on Instagram Stories and take along all our social media followers with us!
Johnson, who teaches Freedom of Expression, Media Ethics, and Diversity as well as Digital Media Law, put together an insane itinerary that had us running around D.C., making us experts of the D.C. metro system.
The trip itself is built on things we learned in one of Johnson’s classes. In our first meeting of the trip, we got the chance to speak with lawyers of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. We had a great discussion, and I feel we made Johnson and Melissa Tully, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, proud by remembering topics from our classes.
Immediately after meeting with the fantastic lawyers at the RCFP, we headed to the National Press Club for dinner where we put our networking skills to work! We spoke with a group of SJMC alumni who were gracious, kind, and willing to answer all our questions about the journalism field in D.C.
And that was Wednesday! Already setting the bar high. How could we top that? Well, we did.
Bright and early the next morning, we made our way to one of the most exciting stops of our trip: The White House!
At the White House, we walked around the East Wing in complete silence as we tried to take in the immense history in front of us. My favorite part of the tour was being able to see all the presidential portraits scattered across the hallways.
Our next destination? The Federal Communications Commission.
We had the opportunity to sit in an FCC Open Meeting. We were seated in the press section, marked by signs that read “Reserved for The University of Iowa.” We attentively listened to discussions about data privacy and expanding broadband.
After a quick lunch, we went straight back to the FCC to meet with some of the telecommunications lawyers, who really broke down what the FCC does and why access to broadband and data privacy is important.
Our last stop on Thursday was NPR. I can only describe us as little kids on a field trip because that is how we looked like walking into the NPR building. We had the great opportunity to speak to Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent, who has been covering major Supreme Court cases, all of which were a part of our classes.
On our last day in D.C., two of Johnson’s former students from the University of Missouri took time out of their busy schedules to talk with us over breakfast about their careers in journalism.
Molly Olmstead from Slate and Monica Dunn, an NBC desk assistant, were fantastic in describing what a post-grad career in journalism in D.C. could look like. I think we all came out of that meeting having a much clearer picture of what our post-grad lives could be.
The rest of the day we were able to explore the city on our own!
The entire trip was an amazing experience. I want to thank UI SJMC PhD alum John Kamp for his generous donation that made this trip possible! I also want to thank visiting associate professor Brett Johnson, and director Melissa Tully — as well as others in SJMC and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences — for making this trip possible and allowing us to represent in the UI SJMC in D.C.!