Newsletter Spring 2018 |

NESPA to host 70th annual conference May 4

For details and procedures on membership, conference and workshop registration and entry forms, please download the PDF.

Martin Nisenholtz will give the keynote speech, “Facebook, fake news and the future,” at the New England Scholastic Press Association’s 70th annual conference Friday, May 4.

He was the founding CEO at New York Times Digital and nytimes.com.

“Changing patterns of news consumption, why ‘free’ news is not always good and how we can help preserve a healthy news ecosystem in the future” are among the topics he will discuss, he said.

With a master’s from the Annenberg School at the University of Pennsylvania, he became a founding faculty member of New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in 1979.

In 1983 he joined Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide where he founded the Interactive Marketing Group, the first full-service interactive unit at a major US ad agency.

Then, in 1995, he joined The New York Times, where he managed digital operations and became CEO of New York Times Digital. Named a senior vice president in 2005, he was responsible for the company’s digital properties including its flagship, NYTimes.com, until he left to teach at Columbia and now at Boston University.

With refreshments available from 7:30-8:30, conference sessions will be from 9 until 2:30 at Boston University’s College of Communication, 640 Commonwealth Ave., Boston.

Also at the conference, delegates will find panels, exhibits, round-tables, lectures and workshops where they can learn about the latest trends, and share concerns and ideas.

Advisers can sign up for detailed publication critiques and on-site visits.

Session topics:

Advertising and business
Basic mobile reporting skills
Best practices online
Careers in broadcast journalism
Developing literary magazines
Editorial policies
Feature writing
Interview techniques

Investigative reporting

Law and the scholastic press
News writing
Opinion coverage and writing
Photojournalism
Sports writing and editing
Systems for covering local news
Yearbook coverage, writing and design.

Awards and recognition

Presentation of the All New England Awards will honor outstanding broadcast, print, print/online and online productions and publications in their school population categories. 

Productions and publications will also receive Special Achievement Awards based on the excellence of individual submissions.

Individual professionals will be recognized for their contributions to the scholastic press in New England.

Benefits of pre-registration 

Those whose forms arrive at Boston University by Friday, April 6 will receive a preliminary conference program and speakers’ list, and a list of places to have lunch.

Contests under way

The NESPA Publications and Productions Contests are open to all school print and online publications and broadcasts, both NESPA members and non-members. 

Awards will be given to broadcast (audio and video) productions, magazines, newspapers, yearbooks, online/print and online publications. To qualify as online/print, a site must include multi media, not pdfs only.

Judges will consider only entries with working URLs. Submit URL to blogs.bu.edu/nespa. 

DEADLINE for receipt of broadcast, magazine, newspaper, online/multimedia entries at the College of Communication: Friday, April 6, 2018. 

DEADLINE for receipt of yearbook entries is Friday, June 1, 2018.

The NESPA Special Achievement Contests are designed to identify and reward excellence in individual work and teamwork for New England’s secondary school media. 

Entries should be those that advisers and staffs decide have contributed significantly to a student broadcast, print, online/print or online publication. 

DEADLINE for receipt of broadcast, magazine, newspaper and online/multimedia Special Achievement Contest entries is Friday, April 6, 2018 at the College of Communication.

DEADLINE for receipt of yearbook Special Achievement Contest entries is Friday, June 1, 2018.

Summer Workshop for News Publication Advisers

The New England Scholastic Press Association invites news publication advisers to a workshop, How to Advise a Scholastic News Publication, Monday, June 25- Wednesday, June 27 at Boston University in the College of Communication.

Based on participants’ priorities, sessions will include how to:

keep a journalistic balance
deal with legal and ethical considerations
teach the staff to cover the school and its community
teach the staff to write and edit news, features and sports along with maintaining a lively forum for student opinion
motivate the staff
teach fundamentals of photojournalism and design
maintain a good relationship with the principal, faculty and parents
use special pages, special sections and spreads as training vehicles
plan, set goals and schedule copy flow for print and online
manage the business side
critique the publication
make the most of professional resources.

In addition to a variety of lab assignments, participants will present critiques and complete curriculum projects. There will be lectures, discussions and lab work. Sessions will be 10-4 with a break for lunch.

Participants should bring with them a set of news publications students have produced during the 2017-2018 academic year. The fee is $200, check or money order. The deadline for registration and tuition is Friday, May 25. 
Click here for the application

NESPA provides PDPs to Massachusetts teachers.

Helen Smith, executive director of the New England Scholastic Press Association, will be the lead teacher.  Experienced advisers will share their successes and answer questions during the workshop.

For more information, please contact Helen Smith at phsmith@igc.org

For details and procedures on membership, conference registration and entry forms, please download the PDF.