Shortly after we got back from the bar, Ryan and I got to work on the story and photos. We worked until about 4:45 in the morning. We were so inspired and fired up about this great moment that we had captured.
I wrote a blog about it the following night and to my surprise it got great reception. First, Poynter did an article about BSU at the Games and included an excerpt of my blog and linked to it. Then I received a pingback on my blog from a Latin news source that translated the Poynter article in to Spanish.
That was all great getting my name and my blog out there. Then I get a tweet from MediaBistro’s publication FishBowlNY.
I read the article they had written with the headline “Sochi drag queen manhandles Ball State Student.” I disagreed with their last sentence, “Perhaps the interaction with Amaro was the performer’s attempt to try and help put an end to the media crush.” I did not have this impression at all. I’ve been to many a drag show and these kinds of things happen all the time, with or without media attention. It’s just apart of the job.
Well I quickly tweeted them back stating what I believed, and the writer responded to me quickly telling me he believed it “was a throw away last sentence, that should’ve been thrown away.” He then updated the article stating that I firmly disagreed with the “theory last sentence” and that I was probably right.
After this engagement, we still hadn’t heard back from Advocate. The story was almost finished and my photos were done and turned in. Ashley Cox, a PR person in the class, came to me and told me she wanted to try pitching the photos to Buzzfeed. While this would have been neat, I was still wanting to hold out for the Advocate. And I’m glad that we did.
One day after going out with only a few people, I returned to the ship. Ashley told me that we still hadn’t heard anything. I started to get discouraged and went down with Marcey to work on the photographs that we took that day. We got a beer and got to work.
Ashley comes down to the lounge with Ryan Howe and the documentary team that was with us. She tells me that she had lied about the fact that we didn’t hear anything back from the Advocate and that they wanted to run the story and the photos on their site!
I was ecstatic and literally almost cried. They have my whole reaction on film too. When it finally ran, it was the top story of the day and got hundred of likes on facebook and comments on the website.