Back from D.C. Trip

View of Downtown Chicago while landing at O'Hare Airport on Wednesday, Jan. 21. It officially ended my trip to D.C. to cover the Inauguration for The DePaulia and Chicago Sun-Times.

A journalist's dream: my assignment was to cover the Presidential Inauguration for the first African-American President in United States history.

As if that wasn't good enough, the dream got better. I was told wireless cards would be provided, along with HD Flip Mino cameras. I used my new media/social media imagination and spearheaded an effort to Twitter while there, and one thing led to the next. The Sun-Times contacted the Twitter account I had set up (@dannythedemon) and asked us to blog for them while in D.C.

Our Twitter endeavor was a huge success, as we amassed more than 400 followers in just 14 days and numerous replies.

The Sun-Times blog worked out great too. In fact, one of our blogs - on presidential historian Lonnie Bunch - became the main story on the front page of the Sun-Times site for a good 30 minutes or so on Inauguration Eve. Here's the screenshot (click to enlarge):

It was a memorable trip. As a journalist, as a student and as an American citizen, I can pull so much from it.

And on top of it all, I also got to give being an interviewee a try. CBC/Radio-Canada did a write-up on me in their Inauguration blog, and Catholic News Service wrote about me in their news briefs. It's the type of trip I'll never forget as long as I live.