College Media Advisors Conference in New York City: A Firsthand Account

Back in November at our college newspaper staff meeting, we were given the opportunity to travel to New York City for the annual College Media Advisors conference. The conference was designed to give us advice from newspaper advisors and those working in the media industry about careers, newspaper leadership, issues college newspaper editors were facing, and so much more.

Initially I wasn't sure about attending because I didn't want to sacrifice some of my spring break to go. However, my advisor convinced me it would be useful to me since I would be taking over the news editor position next year. After reading about the sessions and being persuaded once or twice more, I agreed to go.

Once we arrived in New York City, we registered and received a booklet with a schedule for all the sessions along with our conference issued nametags. Beforehand, our advisor had given us a sheet recommending some sessions we should go to. We were all expected to attend at least six sessions, including one of her recommendations.

My first session of the day was one on plagiarism. Our speakers were an advisor and an editorial panel from the newspaper for a Florida community college. They spoke to us about a real life experience they had with a staff writer fabricating details in an article. They showed us a copy of the article with the writers' identity blacked out. First, we were asked about the positives of the story, then we had to figure out how we could tell that the article was plagiarized. In this particular story, the quotes were very generic and sounded like something anyone could make up off the top of their head.

The speakers then explained how they found out the source of the problem. First, the girl who had been "interviewed" e-mailed the editor and explained that no one ever talked to her and some general facts about her organization were wrong. After this e-mail, the staff spoke to the writer of the story and she ended up confessing that she was out of time to write and didn't know what to do. Therefore, she decided to fabricate some parts of the story. As punishment, she would have to retake the journalism class she was enrolled in and write a letter of apology to be published in the paper.

I believed the session was very useful. Although I have yet to see a plagiarized article come across my desk, I will know what to do to prevent a crisis should this happen to me. It was also helpful to learn about reasonable punishments for the writer. Fabrication is never acceptable in journalism, but at the same time, the staff knew how to punish the author without crossing the line.

In the afternoon, I attended "Bringing Sexyback to the Newsroom." The booklet seemed to promise a session about recruiting new writers to a newspaper. It did that and more. Obviously the title caught a lot of eyes because those who wanted to attend could not all fit in the conference room allocated for the session. The speaker discussed how to make our paper seem more appealing to others as well as how to help save journalism programs.

She explained that a lot of curriculum is outdated and it is important to keep classes fresh. When recruiting new staff, it is more important than ever to show those who are advanced in technology how they can contribute. Putting your newspaper on the Internet and using podcasts are just some of the ways to make the paper more attractive to prospective staff and students at a school.

My last session of the day was a session on layout. I felt I needed to attend because I am not that great at designing and part of an editor's job is to lay out the pages in an appealing manner. Unfortunately, I was disappointed in this session. The speaker did little more than show different slides of layouts and point out what was wrong. She did not really give constructive criticism on how to fix the layout and barely discussed any publishing programs. While it was good seeing not how to design a page, I wish I had learned more about what I should do.

On Friday, I recall attending a session job searching. Again, I did not learn a lot of new information. If you already have basic knowledge about completing your resume, going on interviews, and preparing your portfolio, I would not recommend this one.

Saturday was the last day of the conference. I attended a newspaper critique with our advisor and the other editors. Our paper was being reviewed by an advisor from Arkansas. She looked through our paper and gave us suggestions with regard to design and story ideas. If your newspaper staff is going to this conference, it is worth your time to sign up for a critique. You will see all the little things you were doing wrong that you never noticed before, and you can use the suggestions to help make your paper more reader friendly.

At the end of the day on Thursday and Friday, we met with our advisor for a staff meeting. Since we had attended different sessions, we were able to talk about the best ones and what to stay away from. We compared notes and discussed what we learned, and then we got suggestions for sessions for the next day, as well as anything else we needed to know about our stay in New York.

Other bits of information you might want to know:

In one of the rooms, there were a lot of vendors set up. They represented the Quark Xpress publishing program, a comic strip, and graduate schools. This is a good starting point if you want to learn more about something to improve your newspaper or if you're wondering how to further your journalism education.

One of the benefits of attending any conference like this is meeting new people. I met people from a school in Rhode Island and some of my fellow editors met guys from Iowa. You will have people to sit next to in sessions and maybe even to hang out with in the city after the sessions are done for the day.

It is a good idea to bring multiple copies of your newspaper with you. Not only does one issue get critiqued, you can put your newspaper on a table with other school papers. Pick up copies of other papers and you can look at different designs or pick up new story ideas.

The conference was held on the same weekend as the New York City St. Patrick's Day parade. If you are still in the city while the parade is going on, make sure to check it out. The crowds are crazy and if you are staying in the Roosevelt, the parade assembles right near the hotel, so you'll have encounters with bands, bagpipers, and other interesting people.

Overall, like any conference, the CMA conference has points of interest and things you should avoid. However, it is useful if you are a college newspaper editor needing ideas on how to better run your section or a whole paper. With a lot of opportunities to learn and plenty of leisure time to spend in the city, mark it on your calendar as an event not to miss come March.