It's hard to miss 'Post' staffers during annual Halloween Block Party, look for coverage the following morning.
During my campus tour of Ohio University (way back in 2013), our guide stopped on Court Street to explain to prospective students and their doting parents "where Halloween happens." I nodded with a sense of superiority and camaraderie — I had totally Googled that before. OU was going to be my school, and I was going to experience a true Athens Halloween. I was feeling pretty adult.
Flash forward a few months, and I'm a freshman reporter for The Post's news staff, surrounded by thousands of revelers at the Athens Halloween Block Party.
Dressed as Audrey Hepburn with a reporter's notebook in-hand, I interviewed dozens of students, police officers, Athens Emergency Service Workers and city employees about how their night was going — just as several reporters and photographers were during the Athens Halloween Block Party that year. We would head back to the newsroom to upload what we had in shifts until about 2 a.m.
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Not much has changed. We still send out dozens of reporters and photographers, many of whom are in costume (their choice, not ours), to get the story during the Athens Halloween Block Party. You could say that sort of sucks the fun out of things, but it gives you the perfect excuse to talk to strangers on Athens' most interesting night of the year.
This year, we'll be tweeting, posting to Instagram, shooting photos and videos, and, of course, interviewing. We'll also have a booth set up off Court Street where costumed revelers can have their photos taken by a Post photographer, with the chance to win a prize.
If you see a Postie speed walking up and down Court Street with a notebook or camera, expect to see whatever they gathered on the ground aggregated into a story on thepostathens.com by morning. It's worth checking out.
We'll see you out there. Be safe, Bobcats.
Emma Ockerman is a junior studying journalism at Ohio University and editor-in-chief of The Post. Want to talk to her about Halloween? Email her at eo300813@ohio.edu or tweet her @eockerman.
