Sleepless in Seattle
Advanced journalism students attend journalism convention in Seattle.
April 25, 2017
After not taking home an award at the 2016 fall journalism convention, senior Ruby Rodriguez was determined to win one this time around.
“Winning honorable mention made it feel like it showed my progress and talent,” Rodriguez said.
Eighteen advanced journalism students were excited to show off their talents and represent the school at the spring Journalism Education Association/ National Scholastic Press Association (JEA/NSPA) convention. The staff of Daniel Pearl Magnet High School’s newspaper, yearbook and broadcasting team headed to Seattle from April 5-9.
The first day went by rather quickly with the students exploring the city for food and going to hands-on workshops ranging from learning anything and everything about newspaper such as Photoshop and writing to broadcasting commentary.
Later that day, keynote speaker and newspaper designer Tim Harrower, gave a humorous lecture about fake news during the opening ceremony.
“Never tell lies. Especially in news,” Harrower told the audience of almost 4,000 students during the opening ceremony. ”Just never tell lies, period.”
The next day, students were on the hunt for something new to learn with break-out sessions being held all day.
“There are things I learned but had heard before,” said Rebekah Spector, Editor-In-Chief for The Pearl Post. “But there were new things the (that) I did learn and am wanting to implicate to (into) The Pearl Post.”
In addition to the various break-out sessions on the third day, students were going head strong into their write-offs. All writes-offs were different variations of a form of journalism, including on- air reporting, yearbook layouts, sports writing, photography and commentary pieces.
“I went into my write-off semi blind but with any write-off you learn something new, like how to write a commentary piece,” Spector said.
Outside of the breakout sessions and write-offs, students went sight-seeing and explored the city of Seattle. They went to the crowded Pikes Market, the chilly Harbor Cruise and the terrifyingly tall Space Needle.
“I really liked Pike Place. I went there almost every day for lunch,” said sophomore Zachary Gephart- Canada, a yearbook design editor.
On Sunday morning during the JEA write-offs ceremony, Rodriguez received an honorable mention for on- air reporting, senior Tyler Loring received an excellent in broadcast commentary and sophomore Amanda Jimenez earned excellent in sports writing.
“It’s was a good last convention for the seniors. It was really eventful” Rodriguez said.
