Day two arrived a little too soon for us, but we were excited and looked forward to exploring Denver and capturing the city atmosphere, the streets, the people, and the emotions on our video cell phones.
Our goal was to capture more stories about the local residents and their feelings about Denver as a host of one of the most extravagant events this year, the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
The War in Iraq and abortion rights were the main focus of protesters along 16th Street in downtown Denver. Some women were drawing slogans with chalk on the sidewalk and arguing with opponents. Others, dressed in pink, were shouting “stop the war,” while police, media and the rest of the crowd were trying to fit in the picture.
As we walked further down the street we moved from anti-war and pro-life protests to some more unusual slogans such as “Impeach Cheney,” and “Stop Bird Porn,” with the latter of the two claiming democrats should stop bird-watching in order to allow birds populate freely. “What was that all about?” became one of the most frequent comments made by passers by.
The experience was so real, yet so bizarre; even the police horses seemed puzzled or perhaps uncomfortable while wearing special eye protection.
After streaming live video on several occasions, Reid and I realized that we have been able to resolve the audio issues with the Nokia phones. It was time to move on and bring some fresh information to our audience.
We continued down 16th Street hoping we would also be able to locate one of the 1,000 free bikes, which were supposed to be available during the convention for anyone to obtain, ride and leave behind when done. What we saw in town however were mostly locked up bikes and our quest turned out to be unsuccessful. In reality if we wanted to pursue a bike we had to walk another few blocks and pick it up at a special bike station, which at this point did not seem to be so important anymore.
At this time our trek to the Pepsi Center continued and we encountered more interesting moments along the way.
Reid conducted an interview with a solar power company which had set up their booth a couple of miles away from the protesters and shortly after he moved straight on to more environmental issues, such as the air quality… well at least the one in his room.
He stopped by a street vendor to purchase Barack Obama incense, available at 20 sticks for $2, which we agreed had the peculiar smell of Coca Cola.
We finally entered the convention perimeter sometime after 4 p.m. and headed straight to the media tent to catch up with Ariel and Sandra, the rest of the A Team.
The afternoon slowed down at this point, but in the media world there is never a dull moment. Our professor, Charlotte-Anne, Reid and I all headed to the media lounge to find some cold water. As we leaned on one of the tables for a moment of rest, a conversation with two unknown men began to evolve and turned into a rather interesting video interview. The men were African American journalists from Dallas and Atlanta who had a lively discussion about the role of media and race in the Obama campaign.
The afternoon ended inside media tent number two, where we were finally able to sit down and do some work to share with the people of East Paradise.
Denitsa Yotova 