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From Nov. l8-23, editors from the NS journalism staff had the opportunity to travel to Washington D.C. and attend the National Journalism Convention.
At this conference, journalism members from across the nation gathered together to attend classes and learn about different skills pertaining to journalism and how to apply these skills to their work.
“The main purpose is to learn about journalism and to get excited about what’s possible with the class,” said Ben Cox, journalism instructor. “The conference is always highly educational—I mean, these are the best advisors in the United States that we get to learn from.”
The six NS journalism students that attended this conference were able to listen and learn from the different teachers.
“My favorite part was just listening to all of the presenters. They all have super interesting personalities and different takes on how you to tackle journalism,” junior Kaylee Anderson said. “It opened my mind to the new ideas of what I want to do myself and what I also want to bring to the class. It was super productive and I learned a lot.”
One instructor who taught a graphics class particularly stood out to a few of the students because of her entertaining nature and interesting information.
“She would be like ‘This is a good program for making graphics,’ ‘10 out of 10 would recommend,’ ‘Super legit,’ ‘Very Free.’ She was funny, she talked really fast, and she had to take a selfie with all of us to prove to her boss that she taught a class,” sophomore Carson Hadley said.
One thing taught at the conference was how to write articles in a way that grabs the readers’ attention. This is more of a narrative writing style rather than standard news writing.
“I learned how to tell stories in my writing,” senior Mayzie Talbot said. “Instead of just saying this happened, this happened, this happened—being able to make it more interesting so that people are more excited to read it.”
Aside from the conference, journalism members were able to experience the importance of travel and a setting much different than Sanpete.
“I love showing students the world and showing them what exists outside of the bubble that is Sanpete County,” Cox said. “Even just being with other people in different spaces–seeing how they live and how they work–and trying to understand them better, I think there’s tremendous value in that.”
While these journalism members were in Washington D.C. they were able to visit museums, monuments, and other places of interest.
“My favorite monument was the Washington monument,” Talbot said. “We called it ‘The Pencil’ and we got to go up to the top. It was really cool. I was hoping that Spider-Man would come and save me, but he didn’t, and I was kind of sad.”
Because Washington D.C. is an extensive city, the group found themselves using the metro as their primary mode of transportation.
“I love the metro; I was the route coordinator. I like the metro because it was really fun to ride and went really fast,” Hadley said.
As the “route coordinator” Hadley, map in hand, planned the group’s courses and kept everyone on track.
“Carson loved the metro so much. Every time we would go to get on, he already knew the line and the direction we needed to go,” Talbot said. “When we were figuring out where we wanted to go next, Carson was always the first one to suggest that we hop on the metro and just ride around.”
During the trip, the group was able to learn many things that will benefit the journalism program. They were also able to experience new things, such as riding the metro, and were able to see more of the world.
“I think that experiences are more valuable than things, so we try to provide students with great experiences and just try to open up the world to them,” Cox said. “I think that it’s really important for us to be good global citizens and good human beings in general. So go travel any time, any way you can—because that’s real education.”
