The Council on Foreign Relations hosts an annual Local Journalism workshop at their offices in New York City. This year, I was selected as a participant.

            CFR is an organization from a private foundation dating back to 1921, trying to foster amenity, awareness of global issues and international relations with the goal of fostering peace and understanding between the US and other nations of the world.

            I get weekly, if not twice weekly CFR emails. However, when I saw one that was an invitation to fill out a form to come to this conference,with  air travel, hotel and food while attending the workshop paid for I looked twice. As a journalist, I’m skeptical about everything. It comes with the territory. I wondered about it, and asked our South Dakota NewsMedia Association executive director Dave Bordewyk about it, wondering, is this  legit? He said, yes indeed, it was very legitimate. He said they have a solid reputation and his only regret was that he hasn’t done more with them. I applied, and got a confirmation that very afternoon that they wanted me to come. Got me in touch with a travel agency that got my flights and hotel booked, and so, early this past Thursday morning, off I went.

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