Voice team attends national media conference

From left to right: Graphic Designer Asia Rahman, Editor Preetam Shokar,
Graphic Designer Vardan Sargsyan, and Deputy Editor Lilly Kujawski. Vardan Sargsyan | Washtenaw Voice

The National College Media Convention which took place from Thursday, Oct. 25, to Sunday, Oct. 28, was held in Louisville, Kentucky at the Galt House Hotel. The multi-day convention included networking opportunities, panel sessions, and meet-and-greets with media professionals. The event covered all aspects of college media: multimedia platforms, newspaper, broadcast, yearbook, and magazine journalism. There were over 250 sessions at the four-day event, offering critiques for media publications, and awards for publications. Associated Collegiate Press and College Media Association organized the event.

Preetam Shokar
Editor

The ACP conference was an unforgettable experience. The sessions that took place helped me learn about myself as a individual, working together with the team, and how to improve on my strengths and weaknesses. From ‘Knowing Your Rights’, a session on journalist rights and the First Amendment, to ‘Understanding Your Audience’ a session focused on demographics of different colleges and how to grab the reader’s attention, the speakers all emphasized three important traits: leadership, growth, and opportunity. After attending this conference and gaining valuable knowledge and information, we will be able to implement new techniques into the layout, website, and content that will engage readers much more than before. With the new skills and information acquired during the four-day conference, I am excited to see what our team can do to better the paper and connect with those who already enjoy our publication.

Lilly Kujawski
Deputy Editor

Attending the Louisville Associated Collegiate Press conference redefined my idea of what it means to be a journalist. I had the opportunity to meet other student journalists from around the country, as well as established professionals. The conference sessions gave me a chance to learn more about the areas of reporting I have the most interest in. One of the sessions that stood out to me was a talk lead by Rachel Fradette and Madison O’Connor, two former student journalists who worked on the Michigan State student publication during the Larry Nassar case. Their presentation was centered around dealing with second-hand trauma when reporting and using kindness and empathy when interviewing and writing about sexual assault survivors.

Another one of my favorites was Dr. Tamara Zellars Buck’s lecture about microaggressions in the media. This session encouraged me to reflect on our newspaper and my own leadership skills. Afterwards, I felt motivated to work harder in connecting with and including students of all backgrounds in The Voice. The best part about the trip was how the whole team bonded. Spending three and a half days together gave us no choice but to get to know each other on a much deeper level and I think that was a great experience for all of us. I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the conference. I left Louisville with a long list of inspiration and goals for our paper, a newfound sense of ambition and energy, and a growing passion for journalism.

Danny Villalobos
Staff Writer

I’m grateful for the opportunity to travel to Louisville, Kentucky to learn from industry professionals at the CMA/ACP Conference.  The sessions I attended were insightful, helpful, and made me feel motivated afterwards. It helped me to focus on working harder on the things I want to achieve throughout the semester and also in my life as well. I feel less timid now than I did before.

I witnessed each one of my colleagues become more motivated after each session that they attended. After every lecture we attended, we exchanged the lessons we had learned. I believe that there is more to discussed among us for our future work.

Most importantly, I felt that I became much closer to my colleagues here at The Voice (I’d say we’ve become friends). Spending time with them and dining with them made me better understand their goals, aspirations, and who they are.

Finally, I briefly met some people from different schools. I got to hear their roles, their stories, their advice, and of course a variety of different accents. I’m glad to have been on this trip. Now back to business.

Catherine Engstrom-Hadley
Staff Writer

The conference was a wonderful experience. I really enjoyed a session that gave different recommendations for interviewing people, based on FBI tactics. I never realized how much body language can change how open people act during interviews. I learned about covering international locations by highlighting the citizens and what makes them special. We learned about the legalities of collegiate journalism and how to protect ourselves and our paper if it was ever needed. I learned about investigative journalism and how to better pursue the why of our stories. Louisville was a beautiful city, and the Galt House hotel was very accommodating. It was a fun weekend and I can’t wait to write articles using all the new information I learned.

Nicholas Ketchum
Staff Writer

My oh my, how four days in Louisville’s Galt House Hotel, which stands next to the historic Ohio River, crammed with thousands of student journalists from across the country can energize a person. After I returned, someone said to me, “You seem really hyper.”

I love conferences. They’re group therapy; an industrial-scale party for professionals (or professional students, in this case). I treat conferences as a place to have my thinking and attitude checked, and a place to confirm sneaking suspicions: “Aha! I’m not the only one who thinks the press is too sensational, that there are growing conflicts between journalists and some authority figures, and that some people see journalism as political activism, when rather it should be straight reporting that serves readers.”

I chose to attend sessions that moved toward controversial gray areas, such as “How to Deal With Police” and “Whatcha Gonna Do When They Come For You” (college administrators, that is!)

I not only listened to speakers, but paid close attention to which questions audience members were asking to get an idea of what student journalists were thinking and which attitudes predominated.

My takeaway: there are as many “types” of journalists as there are individuals. In almost every session, I heard questions and commentary coming from every ideological direction; many of which conflicted with a speaker’s premise or conclusion. Debates broke out in most of my sessions. However, not once did anyone become unpleasant or lose decorum. I was encouraged by the professionalism among all the attendees.

Also, I couldn’t imagine a better occasion to better know the editors and staff at The Voice. There’s something about long-distance travel that brings a crew together.

Varden Sargsyan
Graphic Designer

In a country saturated by “fake news”, clickbait, and divisive bias, it is a breath of fresh air to see over 2,500 college students meeting in none other than Louisville, Kentucky with the collective hope of bettering their student publications. Journalistic integrity and accurate coverage of events still appears to be a priority among this group of people. I believe this should shine a light on the value of engaging with one’s own local community, for that is where one can truly make an individual contribution and difference without running the risk of inevitable bureaucratic corruption. It is very interesting, however, to see the line between local communities and the rest of the country blur as we head more towards a digital age, where news stories no longer stay in the bounds of a city but are instead published online for the whole world to see.

What I found particularly interesting from the conference was this repeating notion that print media isn’t necessarily dying, but rather it is in need of a refresh or revival to stay relevant and to be able to compete with digital media. This personally inspired me to reconsider how newspapers can be utilized to convey a message stronger than it could be conveyed digitally. There are certainly advantages to print media, and those things need to be capitalized on to provide new and fresh experience that is useful to college students.

When refreshing print media to compete with digital media, we do however run the risk of devolving into sensationalism, which is ultimately the issue that local news publications have been relatively safe from. It will be interesting, moving forward, where The Washtenaw Voice may go given what our team has learned from this conference.

Asia Rahman
Graphic Designer

Going on the ACP/CMA conference was an enjoyable and revealing trip. The hotel was comfortable and gorgeous for the few nights I spent there. Other then enjoyment, the purpose of this trip was to meet and learn from new people. I met people that lack some of the same resources as our team does, as well as other resources that didn’t even cross my mind. I thought in the United States every college student receives the same treatment as the students in our college. Due to ignorance, and experience, I believe that most people face some cultural and educational challenges. The teams I met had financial struggles which lead to a member working more than one job at a time, while others had to fight a superior who thought that newspaper wasn’t relevant or needed anymore.

What motivated me was just talking to people that were doing what I was doing. What I learned from the ACP/CMA conference I plan to show in my work on the paper. Being a graphic designer, my job is to create the best possible visuals for the paper. Before, I didn’t know what I was doing it for. Going on the trip, that has become clear. Was I doing this for the writers who got all the information from running around getting interviews? Was it for the editors, who make sure it is the best version of the story? It was for the readers and the story. It’s about understanding the story and presenting it the way readers want to see it. After this experience, I have realized that I have a lot to live up to. No one is special, except those who try to do something special.

Rachel Duckett
Contributor

As a contributor for The Washtenaw Voice, I feel incredibly lucky to have been invited to tag along with the scholarship students at the National Media Conference in Kentucky. Everyone involved was warm and welcoming, and made all aspects of the trip run smoothly. The conference itself let everyone choose between about a dozen of hourly talks. Each session I attended left me with new, exciting ideas and questions.

I found it especially striking how many other college newspapers had to fund the trip themselves. For me at least, I found it so valuable to be able to sit in a room with a bunch of other aspiring journalists and talk about the responsibility the media has, and all the social gray areas journalists have to navigate. I think that in any field, it’s so important that these resources, and the connections alone are accessible to a wider range of people. Accessibility is especially important in media, as the best people to tell stories about people of color, or LGBTQ+ people, or immigrants, etc. are the people who live this stories.

Leaving Kentucky, I feel closer to everyone on my news team, and excited about the future of media, and my place within it.

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