High school journalists attend journalism conference

by Melissa Chen, fact checker

High school newspaper staffs in the metro New York area attended the 13th Annual High School Journalism Conference at Baruch College on Thursday, November 3rd.

The purpose of the conference was to give tips about different aspects in journalism that can be applied to students’ work.

Keynote speaker, Mitra Kalita from CNN Digital, shared her journey of how she got to where she is today and answered questions from students.

Before CNN, Kalita has worked for other news companies, such as Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal. She has also taught journalism at universities such as St. John’s and UMass Amherst.

“It’s better to be right than to be first,” Kalita said.

For the rest of the morning, workshops were held to teach students and advisors about journalism. Some workshops include photojournalism, video reporting, the music of writing, and smartphone reporting.

“I learned how/where students can get public records about crimes and release dates. The guest speaker were motivating and engaging,” newspaper advisor Ms. Mills said.

Lunch was given to attendees after the first set of workshops.

During lunch, a press conference was given by the NYC chief digital officer Sree Sreenivasan. Journalists then attended the last workshop of the day.

The Blazer led a workshop called, Voice of the Students: Leading the Modern Student Newsroom, to teach others about the workflow of a student led classroom and help them implement this factor into their own newsrooms.

After the workshops, The Newsies! Award Ceremony began. Runner up awards were given to “Punk is still partying hard, just look harder” and The Highlight for Entertainments/Arts and Multimedia Storytelling, respectively. The Blazer received recognition as the Best Overall Online News Site for the second year in a row.

“At the workshop, I was able to learn about forms of journalism, such as video and writing. Within that, I learned how to be successful in those forms of journalism to appeal to an audience while remaining objective,” sophomore Julia DiMarcello said.