Communications faculty and staff attend national high school journalism conference

Four faculty and staff members from the School of Communications participated in the Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association National High School Journalism Convention Nov. 16-19 in Dallas. More than 4,000 students and advisers attended the JEA/NSPA convention, billed as the largest gathering of student journalists in the country.

Colin Donohue '05, director of student media and an instructor in the School of Communications, and Tommy Kopetskie, communications manager for the school, ran a sponsorship table Nov. 16-17. They talked to high school students and advisers, highlighting Elon University, the institution’s academic accomplishments, and the school’s award-winning student media organizations.

​​Associate Professor Naeemah Clark and Communications Lecturer Kelly Furnas joined them at the convention, offering hour-long instructional sessions that covered a variety of topics. Formerly the executive director of JEA, Furnas was honored during the convention with a Medal of Merit award, which recognizes JEA members who have made significant contributions to scholastic journalism.

Descriptions of their respective convention sessions are listed below:

Furnas hosted two sessions, delving into multimedia content and ethics.

​360 video and you
Shooting 360-degree video allows your audience to take control of the story and simultaneously feel embedded in the scene you’re capturing. In this session, we’ll learn best practices and provide hands-on training for this burgeoning video format.

Ethics in editing
Choosing when and how to provide details to your readers can save your coverage from being incomplete or simply offensive. We’ll learn industry standards to help separate political correctness from insensitivity when reporting on groups in your community.

Clark highlighted ways to write worthwhile opinion pieces and share one’s perspective.

Say something! Writing effective opinion pieces
Session participants will leave knowing how to write op-eds/commentaries that have strong relevance for the reader or will show readers a perspective they may not have thought of before. These frames are powerful because they add to how readers understand a societal issue.

About the National High School Journalism Convention

The convention is an annual gathering of high school journalists and advisers. It features hundreds of practical and professional learning sessions in addition to write-off contests and Pacemaker awards. The educational experiences are geared toward all media types – newspaper, online, broadcast, yearbook and magazine – and include topics useful to both students and advisers.