At the National Journalism Conference, over 1,800 high schoolers from 44 states and three countries were united by a common interest: journalism.
On Thursday, April 16, the Little Hawk Journalism team departed for Minneapolis, Minnesota, for the National High School Press Association Journalism Conference. The Little Hawk website was selected as a Pacemaker Finalist, a prestigious honor given to high school journalism teams. Along with the website being nominated, many Little Hawks were honored as individual finalists. The last time the Little Hawk won a Pacemaker award was in 2022, and this past year, the Little Hawk has published 286 stories in total.
“The top thirty or so websites, yearbooks, and newspapers in the country are chosen as finalists,” Mr. Rogers said. “It’s the highest award for the NSPA for the whole year of work, so it’s supposed to model the best websites, yearbooks, and newspapers, so that other programs can look at it as inspirational.”
On the first night of the conference, all student journalists, advisors, and teachers attended an opening awards ceremony and listened to keynote speaker Jon Bream. Throughout the conference, students were invited to attend a college fair to learn about journalism opportunities for their futures. At the fair, Little Hawks got to ask journalism professors and alumni for advice on how to improve their journalism.
“Part of what makes a good journalist a good journalist is having an open mind, being an active listener, and making other people feel seen and heard, so that they want to tell you their story,” said William Ressler, director of Ithaca College. “Part of it is being able to ignore categories and groups and see individuals. You need to understand the diversity within different groups of individuals and appreciate those individual differences, and be able to relate to those as well. It’s really about stepping outside of yourself and empathizing with the person you’re having this conversation with, so you can tell their authentic story when you write about it, not something that’s filtered through your own experience or your own expectations.”
Journalists then went to learning sessions and participated in breakout sessions with a pro to learn new techniques and helpful tips for writing better articles, taking cleaner pictures, and making videos more interesting. Some journalists were also given the chance to get personal feedback and critiques from professionals to help them improve the Little Hawk. These breakout sessions included learning about newspaper and yearbook spread designs, writing interesting leads, and advocating for more freedom through the press.
“Freedom of the press is important because we’re currently seeing people in charge lie consistently. And at the same time, I want to be clear that that’s not new, but everybody who’s in power has a story that they’re trying to get out, which isn’t always the truth. It’s important that you can take that story and you can compare it to what you’re hearing from other people, so it’s not just one authoritative story,” said Scott Collins.
On Saturday evening, all participants at the conference gathered for the final awards ceremony, where Pacemaker finalists were awarded, and Best of Show websites, newspapers, and yearbooks were announced. While City High didn’t win Best of Show, the Little Hawk earned third place for the website and the newspaper and achieved Pacemaker Finalist.
“I think it’s good sometimes when you don’t win. It’s really good motivation to look at who won and see what they did differently,” said Rogers. “I know that we didn’t write any big feature stories this year that have multiple chapters or that take on a big issue, so that was one area where I think other schools were a little stronger than us.”
The National Journalism conference wasn’t only a chance to win awards, but it was an opportunity to learn from other journalism teams across the country and hear advice from professionals.
