Friday-Day 2

Session 1: First Amendment Free Food Festival

This morning I gave up my First Amendment rights in exchange for food. I could not speak or sit with who I wanted. I had to accept whatever food was given to me—in this case a blueberry muffin, a glazed donut, a glass of iced tea, and a breakfast burrito that was taken from me by the foreign country’s “leaders.” While we ate, we were at their mercy. People with eyeglasses and those wearing red or black were told to move to the same tables, while others had to eat their meager meals on the floor or run around the table. No one was allowed to read any literature; to do so would be exercising their right to express themselves. The event, designed to make us appreciate our First Amendment freedoms, more than made its point in my opinion.

Session 2: Re-Imaging Your Radio Station

In this session the speakers, two general managers at the KWSC-FM radio station in Wayne, Nebraska, discussed how they changed their station’s name from K92, “where the squirrels come to rock” to 91.9, the Cat. They talked about the process, which including surveying students via Facebook, stories in the school newspaper and putting posters around campus to inform and involve the student body in the decision. Reactions to the name change were also discussed, which lead to a wider discussion among everyone in the room about their stations’ formats and different problems they were having finding and maintaining an audience on their campuses. I thought I could relate to a lot to this session and the topics discussed, but I wouldn’t say I learned anything new.

Session 3: The Entertainment Editor’s Guide to Making the Rest of the Newsroom Jealous

The session was taught by Michael Kortezky, the same guy who spoke at the Chicken Salad session Thursday. He did not disappoint. This session was just as hilarious and informative as the first. Kortezky spoke about the importance of creativity and thinking outside of the box when dealing with entertainment topics like music, movies, food, fashion and gaming. He cautioned us to avoid copying other writers’ styles and to find our own voice, and stressed the importance of collaboration between designers and reporters in making an entertainment section into something unique.

Session 4: Opinion Writing That Gets Results

This session was pretty good, and consisted mostly of advice on crafting good editorials. The speaker lectured on how different topics, such as city budgets or crime, can serve as good sources for editorials. He also discussed how blogging and commentary in general have become an important connection between newspapers and their readers. The point he stressed the most however, was good opinion must be backed up by facts so it can stand up to scrutiny. Overall I found this session informative.

Session 5: Dynamic Features

The importance of matching image designs with words was the key topic in this session. The speaker talked about how a good combination of these two elements can convey the tone of a story to reader before they even read the first sentence. Storytelling devices such as line, repetition, typography, illustration, keeping it simple and working with what you have were also discussed. During the class we also broke into groups and brainstorming design ideas for stories the instructor gave us. I thought I learned the most from this class, because at this point I haven’t had to deal with any design or layout techniques, so it was very informative.