Individual Struck By Train, Blue, Orange MetroRail Lines Closed

A single person has been struck by a Metro rail train located at at McPherson Square Metro Station.  The victim is reportedly trapped under the train in an unknown condition.

Train interruptions will be the blue and orange line which are shut down in both directions at this time. The shuttle service has been set up until further notice.

Campaign-Embedded Journalists Discuss Their Experiences

Campus Progress and the GW School of Political Management hosted two panel discussions Monday about the experience of being an embedded journalist during a national campaign. The event, “All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt: Campaign Embeds Look Back a Year Later,” was hosted by Air America correspondent Ana Marie Cox, who travelled with John McCain’s campaign during the election, and featured many journalists who were embedded in various campaigns throughout the 2008 presidential election as well as some campaign staffers.

The first panel discussion featured several young journalists, most of whom had been embedded for the first time during the 2008 election. This included Adam Aigner-Treworgy, a researcher for the Colbert Report who was embedded in the Thompson and McCain campaigns; Bret Hovell, who was also embedded in the McCain campaign and who is now an associate producer for “Good Morning America” on ABC; Nick Summers, a senior reporter at Newsweek who was embedded in Hillary Clinton’s campaign; and Mike Memoli, who was embedded in Joe Biden’s campaign for RealClearPolitics.

Led by Cox, the four journalists discussed their experiences throughout the campaign. Aigner-Treworgy said that, as an embedded journalist, his job was to “chronicle [the candidates’] every move and be an encyclopedia about what each candidate was doing.” He said that he developed a “sick amount of knowledge of what was being said” by the candidates and their staffers.

As embedded journalists, they were often the first to know changes in campaign strategy and Hovell said, “we became these bellwethers of what the campaign was doing and how it was shifting.”

However, while the embedded reporters did supply the facts for the news stories, they usually were not directly responsible for the finished product.

“We were the start of the news,” said Aigner-Treworgy, “we weren’t very involved in what happened to it after it left our hands.”

Of the endless news cycle created by constant coverage of the campaigns, Hovell said, “You race to put out a blog post before the planet takes off. When you land, you’re already in the second or third version of it.”

The journalists agreed that it was often difficult to decide what would be newsworthy as it was happening.

“Never hold back on information,” said Memoli, “you never know what information might be important.”

The second panel discussion was made up of campaign staffers and senior journalists including McCain/Palin embed Kelly O’Donnell of NBC News, Hillary Clinton staffer Jamie Smith, and McCain staffer Justin Germany. They discussed, among many topics, the fragile relationship between the staffers and the press.

“You’re asking them to treat you like a human being, and that’s what they’re asking you,” said Smith. “I found myself advocating for [the journalists] a lot for access, for interviews, for their value.”

“As life-long as the bonds are, you’re still competitors,” said O’Donnell, “but you’re spending a lot of time together; be nice, understand they’re working hard.”

Asked if they would want to be embedded in a campaign again, many of the younger journalists said no, but O’Donnell was quick to say she would want to do it again once the time comes.

Calling the experience of being embedded “intense, sensory, emotional, and challenging,” O’Donnell called it “one of the most remarkable experiences” she has had as a journalist.

Journalist Helen Thomas to Speak at GW, Tickets Still Available

New Website to Tally Community Service Hours for Obama Challenge

By Eugenia Finizio

On September 11 Michelle Obama promised to speak at the 2010 commencement if the GW community completed 100,000 hours of community service, raising questions of how the university would keep track of the hours.  Today, a launch party was held in the Marvin Center Great Hall by the Office of Community Service for a new website called Volunteer Match.

The university has joined forces with Volunteer Match, the popular community service network, to help create a website specifically for GW that allows hours to be reported and tracked. 

Every member of the GW community has been assigned a profile and will be able to enter their hours using the website.

“Our partnership with Volunteer Match will not only help the GW community find volunteering opportunities they can be passionate about, it will help us ensure that service hours are tracked accurately for this challenge,” Robert Chernak, GW’s Senior Vice President for Student and Academic Support Services, said in a press release.

“Tracking and reporting hours will be much easier now that GW’s VolunteerMatch system is up and running,” said GW President Steven Knapp in the release. “I am confident that this new system will help us meet the First Lady’s challenge.”

Only activities that directly serve a group or organization will count towards the goal.  Volunteer Match offers students with service options from over 2,600 organizations in the DC area.         

GW will be hosting a 30-minute Volunteer Match training webinar everyday at 12 pm from Tuesday, November 17th until Friday, November 20th. For more information visit serve.gwu.edu.

University Orchestra Performs First Concert of 2009-2010 Season

On Sunday night The University Orchestra filled Lisner Auditorium with sounds of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Gustav Holst, and Franz Schubert.

The night began with Tchaikovsky’s piece, Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy Overture. The performance highlighted the main themes of the play with the changing speeds of the scales, volume, and instruments. The following piece was Holst’s, St. Paul’s Suite, Opus 29, Number 2. This featured a solo by the concert mistress, Sophia Shin, a GW student.

The final piece was Shubert’s Symphony Number 8 in B Minor, D. 759, “Unfinished”.

The University Orchestra is not solely composed of GW students, but alumni and GW community members, as well. Student musicians were not limited to those majoring in music, but included students who are currently majoring in among others, history, international affairs, and political science.

The concert was sponsored by GW’s music department. The music director and conductor of the orchestra was Dr. Nancia D’Alimonte.  She is currently the Music Director and Conductor of NIH Philharmonia and an education programs consultant for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the National Philharmonic.

The event was free and open to the public. For information about future Music Department Events visit, www.gwu.edu/~music or call 202-994-6245.

Swift Boat Author Says GW Document Ties Ft. Hood Shooter to Obama Transition

It’s been well reported that Nidar Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, was on campus January 6, 2009 for an event at GW’s Homeland Security Policy Institute where he heard Sallai Meridor, the Ambassador of Israel to the U.S. speak. Now, Jerome Corsi, co-author of Unfit for Command Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, has published an article, which some have called misleading, on World Net Daily titled, “Shooter advised Obama transition, Fort Hood triggerman aided team on Homeland Security task force,” that allegedly links Hasan directly to President Obama.

Frank Culluffo, the director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute told the Huffington Post that Hasan had no affiliation with the institute and was only a member of the audience. Cuffulo said the institute publishes the names of those who RSVP as a matter of transparency.

Hasan’s name appeared in the May 19, 2009 report titled “Thinking Anew – Security Priorities for the Next Administration,” with a subtitle, “Proceedings Report of the HSPI Presidential Transition Task Force April 2008 – January 2009.”

Despite writing himself, “There is no indication in the document that the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition,” the headline of Corsi’s piece is being called deceptive and misleading. There is currently no indication that Hasan participated in any way other than being an audience member.

Editor notes at the bottom of the article acknowledge that “Hasan is being reported as a participant in the GWU Homeland Security Policy Institute’s Presidential Transition Task Force, not as a member, noting the group was a university think-tank, not part of the Obama administration official transition team,” and that “The institute’s deputy director is quoted saying he is unable to say if Hasan made any input to the group’s final recommendations.” 

Yet, the article is being framed as Hasan having made recommendations to President Obama.

The topic of the discussion was “Israeli counterterrorism efforts against homegrown, regional and international terrorist organizations; progress on the Peace Process; Israel’s response to the recent terror attacks in Mumbai; as well as other relevant regional security issues.” It took place January 6, 2009 from 10:30 am – 12pm at GW Hospital’s Allan B. Weingold Conference Center Suite (6th floor) at 900 23rd St. NW.

For More Information:

“Thinking Anew – Security Priorities for the Next Administration”

Jerome Corsi’s World Net Daily Article

C-Span Footage of Hasan at the January 6, 2009 event:

Glamorous Beauty Pageant Raises Money For Breast Cancer

Entertainers set the mood at the Sweedish Embassy, Saturday night. Photo courtesy of Bryan Lamb

It was a night of glitz and glam at the Swedish Embassy this past Saturday. The DC entertainment company—Sinergy—hosted its first annual beauty pageant to raise funds and awareness for breast cancer.

The pageant consisted of judges that held former Miss Universe titles, a live saxophone player, glistening gold trophies and stunning designer gowns.

Over 600 girls tried out for the Miss Sinergy pageant over a six-month selection process. The contestants ranged from 18 to 33 years old and came from across the United States and around the world.

Many of the women were nurses, teachers and students; including GW’s very own Jacqueline Heinrich.

Saturday night was the finals with the top 20 girls competing in swimwear, evening wear and finally the top six competing in an interview with questions such as “What is your favorite quote and why?” and “What can men learn from women?”

Allyn Rose, Miss Sinergy 2010 Photo courtesy of Bryan Lamb.

The winner of the competition was Allyn Rose, a senior at the University of Maryland studying government and politics.

At the young age of sixteen, she lost her mother to breast cancer. In her pageant interview, she said that the experience made her stronger and taught her to live life to the fullest. She saw Miss Sinergy as a continuation of her mother’s legacy.

As Miss Sinergy, Rose will receive a modeling contract, a crown handmade in Prague, a monetary prize and the role of representing Sinergy’s newest fashion line and energy drink.

100% of Saturday night’s proceeds went to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

WRGW News, SMPA to Host Journalist Helen Thomas Nov. 17

Known as the “Dean of the White House Press Corp” and the “First Lady of the Press,” Helen Thomas will join the GW community on November 17th for a lecture and Question & Answer session.

Thomas, who has covered every presidential administration since John F. Kennedy, will discuss how the relationship between White House administrations and the press has changed over the years, and how the current administration is handling the media

The event is brought to you by WRGW News, SMPA, GWTV, and the Student Association.

It all takes place November 17th, 2009 at the Elliot School of International Affairs room 113. The event begins at 7pm. Doors open at 6:30pm.

Free tickets are available in the Marvin Center Ticket Master. One ticket per G-World.

Maroon 5 Wows DC Students

Maroon 5 rocks the Smith Center. Alex Laska / WRGW News

Pop-rock band Maroon 5 came to GW Friday night to wow DC students with old standards and new hits.

Opening for Maroon 5 was Fitz and the Tantrums, who got the Smith Center crowd going with upbeat tunes like “Rich Girls,” which laments that “rich girls will break your heart; poor girls will take your money,” as well as several songs from their recently-released EP, “Songs for a Breakup, Volume One.”

The headlining band came onstage to massive cheers shortly after 10pm, kicking off the set with one of their most famous songs, “Harder to Breathe.” The crowd went wild soon after as lead singer Adam Levine stripped off his jacket. The group performed all of their hits, including “Makes Me Wonder,” an acoustic version of “She Will Be Loved,” “Sunday Morning,” and “This Love.” Levine also led the crowd in a cover of Alicia Keys’ hit “If I Ain’t Got You,” and gave the crowd a sneak peek at a new song that hasn’t yet been released called “Last Chance.”

Throughout the night, Levine kept the audience entertained, asking various students to hold his water bottle for him, and telling them they were the best crowd he’s seen so far on the Back-to-School Tour.

Exclusive Interview with Maroon 5 Guitarist James Valentine

 

Maroon 5 will play the Smith Center tonight at 8pm as part of their Back to School tour of college campuses. WRGW News’ Jesse Regis talked with guitarist James Valentine about the tour, the band’s upcoming album, and what he would say if he could speak to dolphins.

Read the transcript below, or check out the complete interview here: Maroon 5’s James Valentine on WRGW

I’m Jesse Regis from the fishbowl. We’re joined by James Valentine, the guitarist for Maroon 5. Maroon 5, of course, will be performing live at the Smith Center on Friday night, James so good to be with you. 

Where are you calling us from?

I’m on the highway right now. I’m in the back of our tour bus. We’re driving to Connecticut now from New York.

So tell me about the college tour. What’s it all about?

We decided to do some touring this year because we’ve been in the studio all year so it’s kinda been time off for us. We tour a lot but this whole entire year we haven’t done any touring. So we thought a good place to start would be colleges. When we first started touring we spent a lot of time on campuses and we sort of missed it and wanted to come back. We like you college kids, we have the most fun playing for you.

What’s a college age audience like? It must be different than playing arenas or anywhere else.

There’s just an energy there that’s not there in the general admission crowd. We love all our fans, of course, but there’s an energy on the campuses that you can’t match anywhere else.

What type of music are you playing? Are you playing some of your more recent stuff, are you trying out new material?

We hope to play more of our new songs. We’re also treating this as a warm up to get some of these new songs into shape because we have to play these songs live, a lot of times, before they start to really evolve and take shape because the live arrangements of our songs will generally be pretty different from what you’re playing on the record. But we’re not done with our record yet so we don’t even really know what songs are going to go on there so we’re not playing as many new songs as we thought. We’re playing songs off of our first two records.

Yeah, and I wanna talk about the new record because you went to of all places, Switzerland. What are you doing in Switzerland?

The producer that we’re working with, this guy named Mutt Lange lives out there and his studio is out there. We basically had to go out there if we wanted to work with this guy. It’s a huge privilege and an honor to be working with Mutt Lange so we went out there. It was good for us because we usually record in Los Angeles and there’s a lot of distractions for guys like us so he was good to take us out of there.  We were just on a bunch of property out there, which was pretty remote. There were no distractions and we could just focus on working on the music.

Could you see a difference in the music you were making in Switzerland versus a studio in Los Angeles?

I think what we do is what we do. I think the main difference is that we just did it for longer hours. We were working harder and longer.

The album’s coming out in 2010. Any specific date yet?

I think it’ll come out late winter, early Spring.

What’s the motivation for the record? What’s the focus? Is it going to a dark record, is it going to be a more mature record, a poppy record?

It’s the next step forward for us. I don’t think the fans will be too mystified by what they hear. It’ll sound like a Maroon 5 record but we’re always pushing forward a little bit.

You do tons of live shows. You must have a few kinks in there at some point, have you ever had a problem, a broken string or something where you can’t go forward.

Oh, yeah, we’ve had all kinds of things go wrong. I fell off stage once - that was fun. There was a curtain that was sorta hiding the fact that the stage ended. I was jumping around and I fell off. Lots of stuff happens you just have to keep going. We’ve played so many shows over the years, we kinda know how to cover things before they go horribly wrong.

You guys still got crazy fans coming up on the stage?

Occasionally fans try to get up there but I think our fans are somewhere in between the Jonas Brothers hysteria, you know they’re not as crazy as those kids, they’re a little older so I think they’re a little more mellow. We played a radio festival with [the Jonas Brothers] once and our fans aren’t quite that crazy. And they’re not as intense as they’d be at a Metallica show. So they’re somewhere in between the Jonas Brothers and Metallica.

Speaking of other artists, do you have any interest in collaborating with other artists in the future? What types of bands do you admire that you’d really like to make a track with?

Since we’re in the DC area how about Fugazi? Maybe we could do something with them. I don’t know if they’d totally be down for that though.

You gonna have any time to sightsee when you’re in the DC area? Or are you guys just kinda running around and won’t have any time for that?

No, we’ll have a little bit of time. We were out there pretty recently. We were out there for the inauguration, actually.

You were out there in the cold?

Yeah, I was out there. I was in front of the White House. I actually saw the inauguration. The rest of the guys in the band actually gave up on getting in because it was crazy on the streets and people who didn’t have tickets were trying to get in and the security machine at our gate broke down, but I struck around and persevered and I finally made it in, which was such an amazing experience. We played the Presidential ball, we played a couple other balls, which was the coolest thing we’ve ever done.

And you went out on the [National] Mall just as a private citizen, just waiting in line with everyone else?

Yeah, yeah, it was awesome.

There’s this rumor out there that I want to talk about from my highly reliable source, Wikipedia that says this might be the last Maroon 5 record for awhile, is there any truth to that?

It says that on Wikipedia? I think that might stem from something Adam said in Rolling Stone awhile ago.

That the band had reached its peak and might be disbanding…

Yeah, and probably not. I think we’ll probably make a couple more records, but you never know. I would say the money is on probably a couple more records, for sure.

We want to have a little bit of fun with you. It’s our speed round. I’m gonna throw some questions at you, you’re going to give me the first thing that comes into your head.

Ok, Yeah this could be dangerous.

Yeah it could ruin your career. I’m just kidding, we’re gonna have some fun with it. If you were a side dish, what would you be?

Mac and Cheese

What’s your favorite type of sock? Tube sock guy, low cut sock guy?

I like Thorlos tennis socks.

Oh, that’s right you’re a big tennis player…

Yeah.

Favorite Muppet?

Animal.

Oh yeah!? But he plays the drums though…

Do you know the name of the guitar playing Muppet because I don’t

I don’t, we’ll look into it. Your favorite breakfast food?

Frosted Flakes.

Are you a fan of MC Hammer?

Yes. I mean, that was everywhere. I memorized all of it. My music hits you so hard, makes me want to say oh my Lord, Thank you for blessing me. With a mind to rhyme and two hyped feet.

Do you own a pair of parachute pants?

I don’t own a pair of parachute pants, unfortunately.

If you could speak to one animal, what would it be?

A dolphin.

What would you say to the dolphin?

I’d be like “what’s up, why you guys so smart?”

What’s your favorite member of the Beatles?

Let’s go with Paul, because nobody ever says Paul.

Do you think Elvis is really dead?

Yes.

Tupac?

Yes.

Twitter of facebook, which do you prefer?

Facebook.

Favorite founding father?

Jefferson.

Oh well, your friends at Thomas Jefferson University will appreciate that.

I was just saying that just to annoy you guys.

Guitar Hero or Rock Band?

How about picking up a real guitar and learning how to play it?

Would you rather be dead…..or alive in a box?

I’ll be alive, I would rather be alive, wherever I am.

We’ll have to leave it there. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow.

I can’t wait either, I’m gonna be intimidated. George Washington, you guys are, like smart, that’s a good school, it’s not that easy to get in there. They just don’t let just anyone in. If it’s going to be a smart audience we’re going to have to play our most high-brow stuff.

The show starts at 8pm tonight and tickets are still available at the Marvin Center Ticketmaster. Tickets are $30 for students and $33 for faculty, staff & alumni.