RESEDA : Student Scribe Toils Behind Oscars’ Glitz

Romina Atayan is only 17, but she has discovered the truth about journalism: that no matter how exciting the assignment, it comes down in the end to sitting there on deadline, poring over notes, coughing from a cold and missing the best part of the event.

The youngest reporter ever to cover the Oscars, the Reseda High School senior donned a little black dress, armed herself with a list of questions and headed to the Shrine Auditorium Monday night with dreams of attending the Governor’s Ball and having a private chat with David Letterman.

When it was all over, her tickets to the ball had not been delivered and Letterman was nowhere to be found. The final awards were delivered while she was writing a story for USA Today.

But Romina still wants to become a journalist.

At the ceremony, Romina said in an interview Tuesday, the press worked harder than she expected. And reporters were much quieter.

“I had this vision it would be really crowded and everyone would be surrounding the winners and shouting questions,” she said. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

Instead, she said, reporters raised numbered cards they had been given and asked their questions when recognized by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences employees.

Romina got to ask one question, of Best Actor winner Tom Hanks.

“I said that his character, Forrest Gump, had triumphed over three decades and asked him whether he saw his career going in the same direction,” she said. Hanks took that to mean that she wondered if he expected to win a third Oscar next year, and said that he didn’t think he would.

Romina, who is co-editor-in-chief of the Reseda High School newspaper, the Regent Review, became the first student journalist to obtain credentials to the Oscars after asking a gutsy question at a student press conference held by officials at the academy.

She said she got to see a few stars--Hanks, Martin Landau, Jessica Lange, Jack Nicholson and others--but mostly, she worked.

“I didn’t really get to see who won or hear the speeches,” she said. “I’m glad my parents recorded it for me.”