After that, we continued with our evening. I posted the link on my facebook, and the next day at work, a producer watched the video and forwarded the link to a few more people in our office. My co-workers said they liked it and thought it was a good question.
During President Obama's town hall, I was being filmed because I was a young person watching it on the computer while texting my friends. A reporter jokingly said, "When he answers her question, get ready to run so you can get her reaction on camera." I had spent a lot of time going through the website voting on questions, so I immediately recognized two top questions that both received over 6,000 yes votes. Our video got 6 yes votes and 12 no votes, so I knew our question would not get played.
I began eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich while watching the town hall meeting on my computer. I then heard one of our reporters and a producer yelling. They were watching the town hall on the NBC feed, so it was several seconds ahead of the internet broadcast. I heard the moderator of the town hall say "Alex from Ohio", then I saw our video come on the screen.
I began shaking, and I couldn't breathe. One of our photographers ran towards me, and other people in our office began looking at me and watching me freak out. It was such a meaningful and powerful moment in my life; something I don't think I've ever experienced.
My reaction was caught on camera, and a reporter compared me to the annoucement of Miss America. I was in total shock... I still can't wrap my head around the idea that the President of the United States watched my silly video and looked at me and talked to me and listened to me and answered me.
The best part was after our video was played, President Obama said, "That was pretty well done!" The audience laughed and clapped.
The "Open for Questions" forum received over 104,000 questions. President Obama answered 4 typed questions and 2 video questions - including mine. The remainder of the questions were asked by people in the audience.
At work, the D.C. NBC News Channel package included me. It had my reaction and also a few good sound bites from Secretary Geithner and President Obama. The package ended with "Geither's goal: blahblah. Obama's goal: blahblah. Alex's goal: taking a breath."
Our office is shared with a reporter from the Columbus Dispatch, a reporter/photographer for Ohio News Network, and Telemundo, and they all wanted to include me in their pieces that day. Our managing editor contacted the person in charge of NBC stations in Ohio to inform them of what had happened. A little blurb about me was on the 11 o'clock news on the NBC Cleveland affiliate station, WKYC. Here are a few appearances of our video in the news:
CNN (We're at 1:15)
ABC World News
The Columbus Dispatch
I would like to thank Kristen, Malorie, my co-workers at NBC News Channel, everyone at the Semester in Washington Journalism program, my parents, and the White House staffer who first viewed our video and liked it.
You all made yesterday the best day of my life.
