Scholastic journalists and their teachers heard sessions on topics ranging from news writing to graphic design essentials at the New England Scholastic Press Association\u2019s 63rd annual conference at Boston University\u2019s College of Communication Friday, May 6.<\/p>\n
Tom Fiedler, the College of Communication\u2019s dean, welcomed the group of more than 650. Speakers included College of Communication faculty and students, national and regional professionals, and high school magazine, newsmagazine, newspaper, online publication and yearbook advisers and staff members.<\/p>\n
Along with the results of All-New England and Special Achievement contests, those at the conference received 63 tips from the New England Scholastic Press Association\u2019s Board of Judges on how staffs can improve their work.<\/p>\n
By Megan Welch<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI have a question for you,\u201d WCVB-TV reporter Kelley Tuthill said. \u201cWho can tell me where I went to college?\u201d<\/p>\n Her question received blank stares from nearly everybody in the audience in Morse Auditorium.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to be a good story teller, you have to be a good listener,\u201d Tuthill said.<\/p>\n These were the opening words of advice to students and their advisers at the New England Scholastic Press Association\u2019s 63rd annual conference.<\/p>\n Tuthill, the keynote speaker and, as she had said, a graduate of Notre Dame, talked about telling stories with impact.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t pay attention or listen, there is no way you can be a good storyteller,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Tuthill, who wrote for publications at Thayer Academy in Braintree before she graduated in 1988, said she knew from a young age that journalism was the right career for her.<\/p>\n For her, she said, the events matter less than the people do.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I look back at my career it\u2019s not that I was at the presidential recount,\u201d Tuthill said, referring to events in 2000. \u201cThat was amazing, but I\u2019m more likely to remember the people I met there.\u201d<\/p>\n With communications technology, news can be delivered instantaneously\u2014and that has become the new expectation.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re looking at a field that is changing so rapidly,\u201d Tuthill said. \u201cThe minute we hear something and can confirm it’s true, we\u2019re expected to tweet it out to people.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople say that journalism is the first draft of history, but no one imagined that the draft would be 140 characters.\u201d<\/p>\n Journalists need to get used to 140-character limits, and they also have to possess curiosity and read widely, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to care,\u201d Tuthill said. \u201cYou have to care about other people, about things that are important and about getting stories right and being fair and thorough.\u201d<\/p>\n If journalists care enough, sometimes their stories can have an impact on someone else\u2019s life. Tuthill and WCVB-TV followed the story of a terminally ill woman from China whose dying wish was to see her parents a final time.<\/p>\n \u201cI was really skeptical that our station could do anything when the federal government wouldn\u2019t grant her parents a visa, but we helped make that happen,\u201d she said, showing the family’s reunion.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about sticking with a story and seeing if you can change something,\u201d Tuthill said.<\/p>\n \u201cOrdinary people in extraordinary circumstances have amazing stories to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n One story Tuthill covered concerned the effects of budget cuts on fire departments\u2019 response times.<\/p>\n She showed the impact on a Shirley, Mass., family whose house caught fire.<\/p>\n The local fire station was closed, but an off-duty firefighter who lived nearby went into the burning building and rescued the mother, who would otherwise have died. Her three children and their baby sitter had escaped from the blaze.<\/p>\n Tuthill also said that though journalists can make an impact, they have to keep a certain amount of distance from a story.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes we want to be that person who helps too,\u201d Tuthill said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut our job is to help in a different way\u2014to tell the story and draw attention to the situation.”<\/p>\n “That\u2019s my job: not to be an advocate, but to shine the light.\u201d<\/p>\n Megan Welch is an editor of The Villager at Westport High School in Westport, Mass.<\/em><\/p>\n By Samantha Libraty<\/em><\/p>\n Especially after the suicide of Phoebe Prince, student news publications have done in-depth stories on bullying at their own schools.<\/p>\n At the New England Scholastic Press Association\u2019s conference May 6, an attorney, an adviser and an editor in chief discussed related legal and ethical considerations.<\/p>\n The attorney, Robert Bertsche, is with Prince Lobel Glovsky & Tye. The adviser and the editor in chief, Harry Proudfoot and Samantha Cabral, are with The Villager<\/em>, a daily newspaper at Westport High School in Westport, Mass.<\/p>\n Bertsche spoke about the Massachusetts law that gives student journalists in the commonwealth\u2019s public schools First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n \u201cThe law in Massachusetts is absolute,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s only as absolute as people make it.\u201d<\/p>\n Massachusetts student journalists are free to cover important, controversial stories without administrators holding them back, Bertsche said.<\/p>\n In covering bullying, Proudfoot said, student journalists should \u201crun stories on victims, so that there is a first-person account of bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n An ethical question with a first-person account is whether to run a student\u2019s name.<\/p>\n Proudfoot and Cabral said that the student in question should decide whether to have his name published. The Villager<\/em> puts an editor\u2019s note at the top of the article indicating whether a name is real, they said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe role of the newspaper is to bring attention to social issues,\u201d Cabral said. \u201cWhen students are educated on things such as bullying and suicide, it is easier for them to realize that they should get help.\u201d<\/p>\n Proudfoot said The Villager<\/em> did an entire section on suicide, \u201cnot because it is a huge problem at our school, but because we wanted to be proactive in preventing it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMake sure to stress the importance of help services available,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In dealing with suicide and a specific suicide in particular, Proudfoot said it “may sometimes be better to make the tough decision not to run a story.\u201d<\/p>\n Samantha Libraty is an editor of The Newtonite at Newton North High School in Newtonville, Mass.<\/em><\/p>\n By Kait Kingman<\/em><\/p>\n Thomas Caywood, now a reporter with The Worcester Telegram & Gazette<\/em>, said he had unique opportunities for story telling as an embedded correspondent in Iraq.<\/p>\n Caywood, a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Gulf War in 1991, said he and a photographer, John Wilcox, spent three and a half months covering the 42nd Military Police Company, a National Guard unit. Both journalists were with The Boston Herald<\/em> at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were chronicling a story on these soldiers’ lives and how the war changed them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n “I got to see the real them\u2014the homesickness, the little practical jokes. Part of the story actually becomes yours because you’re also experiencing it with them.”<\/p>\n Power supplies made writing and uploading difficult, especially on missions, Caywood said.<\/p>\n “John and I would try to find an empty outlet and plug everything in as often as we could, to let it all charge.<\/p>\n \u201cBut even the small task of uploading pictures was difficult. We’d be in the process of uploading, and we’d lose power and have to start all over. The guys would be sitting there laughing at us for it.”<\/p>\n Journalists in war zones need to win trust, Caywood said.<\/p>\n “Here the roadside bombs are what get you,\u201d he said. \u201cIt’s nerve-wracking.<\/p>\n “If you can’t keep up, not whine, or carry your own equipment, that’s going to be a problem. Everyone is fearful, but you can’t let that show. That goes back to living the story. They were tired and I was tired. No one had to say it.”<\/p>\n Caywood helped load and unload supplies, along with carrying his own gear.<\/p>\n “You have to do your part,” he said. “As the writer I wanted to be a part of the chores. I wanted to feel it.”<\/p>\n However, being involved also comes with responsibility, he said.<\/p>\n “You have to be accurate and professional,” Caywood said. “It’s good that you’re accountable for what you write.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it was a hoorah mission and they caught the bad guys, then they loved that story,” he said. “But if it showed them in a bad light, they hated it.”<\/p>\n \u201cYou’re there to write the good stories and you’re there to write the bad stories. You’re not their buddy.”<\/p>\n Ethics was a major issue, Caywood said.<\/p>\n “You get close to the soldiers, so you get influenced by them,” he said. “You are also a non-combatant and that is also an issue.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a non-combatant you are surrounded and protected by these men and women on missions.”<\/p>\n \u201cYou are also taking up a seat where they could have put another solider. So if you see someone with a gun in the distance you should tell one of the soldiers beside you, but I didn’t know if I could do that.”<\/p>\n \u201cSo the question became, \u2018Am I going to die over journalism ethics?\u2019”<\/p>\n Kait Kingman is an editor of The Villager at Westport High School in Westport, Mass.<\/em><\/p>\n By Maeghan Quinlan<\/em><\/p>\n Two Wayland Student Press Network editors gave suggestions at the conference May 6 on the whys and hows of starting, organizing and improving online news publications.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the web you can go into multimedia\u2014photos, videos and social networking,\u201d said Matthew Gutschenritter, co-editor in chief of the award-winning Wayland site with Evan Barber.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to figure out what your goal is with your online publication.”<\/p>\n “When things are published online, people don\u2019t have to wait to read something for two weeks or a month. They can get at it right away wherever they are.\u201d<\/p>\n Creating an online publication means that each staff member needs to want to learn new skills, Barber said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need to change the way you think,\u201d Barber said. \u201cThe \u2018I\u2019m scared of computers and technology\u2019 attitude has to go. Attitude is everything because the nature of journalism is always changing.\u201d<\/p>\n Gutschenritter said content should drive the design.<\/p>\n “There are certain stories that would work better online than they would in print,” he said. “You can divide things up by what kind of content it is.”<\/p>\n \u201cWhen getting started you have to find someone who knows their web stuff. The most common platform is WordPress. WordPress has plugins that help you with all kinds of things.\u201d<\/p>\n Staying organized is crucial, Barber said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you are putting an online publication together in class, we highly recommend using an internal email system,\u201d Barber said. \u201cA class website can help you stay organized. It keeps everything together from homework assignments to contact information and our class handbook.”<\/p>\n \u201cA big thing online is rolling deadlines,\u201d Barber said. \u201cThe deadlines are staggered. We set our website up so that we can have an article to publish when we need it or want it to be published.\u201d<\/p>\n Challenges for existing online publications include attracting and holding an audience, the editors said.<\/p>\n \u201cSocial media is a big thing right now,\u201d Barber said. \u201cIt is something that brings your articles around and it is a great way to bring people to your site. At the top of our website we have a twitter feed.\u201d<\/p>\n To keep people coming back, publish as often as possible, Gutschenritter said.<\/p>\n \u201cEach week we send about 400 emails to parents and subscribers to tell them what will be on the website soon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Other techniques Barber suggested to keep the readers happy are to use:<\/p>\n \u201cThe best way to make your publication better is to look at what other people are doing,\u201d Barber said.<\/p>\n But he said, \u201cYou can\u2019t waste your time trying to do everything because your content will suffer and your content is extremely important.\u201d<\/p>\n Maeghan Quinlan reports for The Villager at Westport High School in Westport, Mass.<\/em><\/p>\n Judges who chose the Special Achievement Contest winners this year offered some suggestions for improvements.<\/p>\n Of the 1,138 Special Achievement Contest entries this year, 181 won awards.<\/p>\n Now, in the New England Scholastic Press Association\u2019s 63rd year, here are 63 suggestions to help staffs continue to improve their work.<\/p>\n Judges praised the winning entries.<\/p>\n Resulting suggestions for emulation include the following:<\/p>\n First Place<\/span><\/p>\n Class I<\/strong><\/p>\n Class III<\/strong> Second place<\/span><\/p>\n First Place<\/span><\/p>\n Second Place<\/span><\/p>\n Class I<\/strong> Second Place<\/span><\/p>\n Third Place – tie<\/span><\/p>\n Class III<\/strong> Second Place<\/span><\/p>\n Class I<\/strong> Class II<\/strong> Class III<\/strong> Documentary<\/strong><\/p>\n Feature story<\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n News story <\/strong><\/p>\n PSA<\/strong><\/p>\n Artwork<\/strong><\/p>\n Cover design<\/strong><\/p>\n Fiction<\/strong><\/p>\n Nonfiction<\/strong><\/p>\n Photography<\/strong><\/p>\n Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n Advertisement<\/strong><\/p>\n Artwork \/cartoon<\/strong><\/p>\n Bylined column<\/strong><\/p>\nPanelists urge sensitivity when covering bullying, suicide<\/h3>\n
Journalist describes modern war reporting<\/h3>\n
Embedded in Iraq with National Guard unit<\/h4>\n
Editors give advice about online news<\/h3>\n
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63 Suggestions from NESPA judges<\/h2>\n
First of all, nice going!<\/h5>\n
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All New England Awards for 2011<\/h2>\n
Broadcast<\/h4>\n
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Magazines<\/h4>\n
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\nFirst place – tie<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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Online<\/h4>\n
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Newspapers<\/h4>\n
\n First Place – tie<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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\n First Place<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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Yearbooks<\/h4>\n
\n First Place<\/span><\/p>\n\n
\n First Place<\/span><\/p>\n\n
\nFirst Place – tie<\/span><\/p>\n\n
Special Achievement Awards 2011<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Broadcast<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Magazine<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Newspaper<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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