A Full Day of Exploring in Atlanta

I don’t know why but whenever I get to be the photojournalist of the day we always have great activities scheduled and therefore I have so many things to write about. I’m okay with that though!

The CNN tour is probably one of the dreams that journalists or journalists-to-be wish for. Here in Atlanta, Georgia is located the headquarters of CNN which dated back to June 1st, 1980 so the excitement was even bigger. The brain after this great wonder was Ted Turner who is from Atlanta. This explains why the headquarters are located here. Without having seen the offices and the news rooms, we all thought of it as a shopping mall because that’s how it looked like with all the stairs and the shops as well as food stands. Everything started to make sense when we proceeded into the globe, which was practically the real entrance. In the beginning, the number of viewers reached to 1.7 million while now it is estimated as high as 2 billion. And that’s quite a lot! We were also shown the domestic news room in which 100 people worked 24/7. The number of employees could go up to 250 when there are breaking news sessions. This room was connected to 40 bureaus internationally. After having gathered this useful information, some of our folks didn’t miss the chance to even try some TV broadcasting in which, to be honest, they did great!

After having taken massive number of pictures in every corner of CNN, we headed to College Football Hall of Fame, which was another wonderful stop. There were plenty of things to be done, seen or read. During a short film that was shown in there, which was related to the the dedication and life of the players, we felt the emotion so deep in our hearts that we found ourselves wiping the tears away.

The third stop was the Center for Civil and Human Rights which was simply staggering. There were different types of topics and moments in history starting from Martin Luther King Jr.’s movements, motivating speeches as well as heartbreaking real-life stories of people who had suffered segregation. Not to forget the Human Rights section which presented various types of human rights’ violations as well as brave people who had raised their voices to make this world a beautiful and better place for everyone. “Protecting people doesn’t mean you need guns or to be a soldier or a high-ranking politician. Everyone can play a role and everyone can make a difference “ Freddy Mutanguha says. Quotes like this and many others made us reflect and think once more on the very role we as individuals play on improving lives of those who suffer because we refuse to talk and speak up.

The day was over after we had dinner as a group in a Turkish restaurant whose cuisine is pretty similar to the Balkan’s. Our American team fell for it and were convinced once more to visit our lovely countries and to enjoy the best meals ever!