Multicultural democracy-fest outside gives the lie to fear-mongering speeches inside at Cleveland's RNC

What a week Cleveland had! A roaring success both inside and outside the Quicken Loans Arena. Those are the sentiments here on the ground, from local media and my current (and former) students who were out there, blogging and tweeting from the streets (@vivacarlitos_ and @ChenkusNews on Twitter) and recounting their experiences at volunteer activities with the Republican Party (Alexya, Tim, Olivia, Andy) and national media internships with ABC, NBC and PBS (Julie, Will, Jack, Chris, Alec).

Alec Chenkus at his internship with PBS's
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly. Photo from the show's website.

Then there was Peter, who saw the RNC through the eyes of a youth choir, the Singing Angels, who sang the national anthem at the start of the convention and appeared on the "Today Show," among other triumphs.

Media internships, in some cases, prevented students from blogging and tweeting. So I'm eagerly anticipating tomorrow's class, where we'll hear from them as well as a non- class-member who was at NBC for the week and Ashley Bastock, a recent graduate now at NBC's "Meet the Press," who will talk to us by Skype.

Media are now making the turn to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, but at the end of the RNC, most described Donald Trump's acceptance speech as "dark" or even "dystopian." Cleveland.com's Chris Quinn, speaking on the WVIZ show Ideas, contrasted the fear-inducing view of America from inside the convention hall with the multicultural, free-speaking love-fest going on outside for most of the week.

Yes, some confrontational rhetoric and one flag-burning did occur, but it was all cool and people got along just fine with a lot of help (and apparently, no undue force) from police. Pictures of police and protesters hugging one another, police bicycle brigades using "soft force" to control crowds, Chief Calvin Williams out there at almost every scene that might have turned into violence, calming the crowds with his officers, and controlled shouting matches between opposing groups who expressed themselves without violence or mayhem, gave the lie to the fear-mongering speeches going on inside the convention hall.

And that's all I have to say about how it went down.