Back to the oaks

By Jon Sarver Jr.

The last 10 days have been a total blur; running all over the state, taking pictures, talking to candidates and voters and writing articles. Before I realized what was happening, I found myself packing for tomorrow’s flight back to North Carolina. Looking back on today, I thought it was fitting we ended the trip the way we did. Elon News Network spent the afternoon at a forum with a whopping six candidates in attendance (two via video call). In a way, this afternoon was a rapid recap of the whole trip. 

I found myself taking photos once again at the final event of the Iowa trip. On a normal day, everyone would do the normal procedure at an event (note taking, filming, photography, and interviewing). After the event, we would head back to the hotel to edit and write for the ENN website. The only difference this time was that I was constantly taking photos of all the candidates (Warren, Yang, Klobuchar, and Delaney), and then running back to publish my photos to help with the live blog. Everyone was working at a much faster pace in order to get the content on the ENN website in real time. It was incredible to watch everyone work so hard on the final day. 

I want to wrap up this blog with a final word about the trip and the experience that me and my fellow journalism classmates got on this trip. While ENN provides amazing experience in reporting for students on Elon’s campus, being on the ground in Iowa and covering the candidates was an incredibly unique opportunity. Everyone in the journalism group did a fantastic job, and I am ecstatic that I was able to participate in this experience.