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Reporting from Ohio: election year

Athens reacts to Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" in this news and video piece that I wrote, edited and produced before the 2005 election spotlight would turn on Ohio. Select links inside story to see my video interviews outside the theater on the film's opening day.

In this report, ATHENSi.com's Kristen Stevens explores reactions of Athens area residents to Michael Moore's film, "Fahrenheit 9/11"

On tour with Jesse Jackson in Appalachia

Rev. Jesse Jackson hired me through the Ohio U. School of Communications last summer to write press releases and daily reports from the road of his Appalachian bus tour.

Here's what I wrote: Reinvest in America Bus Tour: daily reports and press releases

Rev. Jesse Jackson enjoys an evening with the family of Ed Yankovich, president of United Mine Workers of America district two on June 6, 2004, the kickoff to the Reinvest in America bus tour of Appalachia.

Photo by Susana Raab

We started at a black Baptist church in Pittsburg and finished five days later at a town square rally in West Virginia. After rallies, interviews and speeches each day, I was writing more than sleeping at night. Jackson slept even less. Round the clock he would pace, plan, ask questions, talk with Union leaders and unemployed workers, call senators and argue with CNN's Lou Dobbs and others over the importance of the working poor as a program topic.

Jackson talked with me about meetings with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. toward the end of his life. He was focused on America's working poor, most of whom were - and are - white. Jackson and his fellow civil rights workers were caught off guard when King invited some new people to one of his last meetings: Jews from Brooklyn, farm workers from Mexico, Native Americans, blacks from the deep south - and white workers from Appalachia. King said the way to get the message across was to show that all races of people in America suffered and were treated unfairly as workers, Jackson told me.

I interviewed retired miners - uninsured and dying of black lung - and listened to Jackson recall his feeling when he left the south on a football scholarship. He was an all-star quarterback with a calling from God and the south. Feeling stifled and confused by the racism he experienced in the predominantly white university, he said he quit the team and returned to the south to attend seminary school and join the civil rights movement.

Articles

1-29-04 OU grad now top spokesman for Ohio Democrats The Athens News, By KRISTEN STEVENS

Dan Trevas was up at 4:30 a.m. last Thursday blasting off a statewide message welcoming George W. Bush to the state, the president's 14th visit to Ohio...

10-30-03 AP war correspondent and 'Stylebook' editor come to OU The Athens News, By KRISTEN STEVENS

Two longtime Associated Press veterans joined Ohio University journalism students in Athens last week to share insights ranging from democratic editing to the symphony of a good lead paragraph...

10-09-03 OU star disc jockey keeps local dance floors seething hot The Athens News, By KRISTEN STEVENS

...Word on street is that DJ Roboticus ignited the Athens dance scene like Jane's Addiction relit rock in the '90s. Maybe that's a stretch, but Haug brought boxes of vinyl and accomplished something special...