Kelly Rulison
Sports Editor
The Bridge newspaper staff rejoices after bringing home 14 awards from the Illinois Community College Journalism Association (ICCJA) conference at Harold Washington College in Chicago, IL, held on April 7 and 8.
Thursday morning on April 7, the Bridge loaded up their bags and set off for a six hour drive to Harold Washington College. Upon arrival, their goal was to obtain fresh aspects and skill sets given by speakers the college gathered.
“I enjoyed the whole trip. I learned a lot about how to make your layout standout for the paper and making contacts with different people,” said Bridge photographer Krista Davenport.
Events started at 3 p.m. with three different sessions that students could choose to attend. Those being ‘Designing with InDesign’ with speaker Galina Shevchenko, ‘Photojournalism: from Staff to Freelance’ with Matt Marton, and ‘Interviewing: More Than Asking Questions’ with Katherine Anderson-Tedder.
At 4 p.m. the next set of sessions started that included the following: ‘Making Your Ad Department a Success’ with Chris Richert, ‘Photojournalism: From Staff to Freelance’ with Matt Marton, and ‘Interviewing: More Than Asking Questions’ with Katherine Anderson-Tedder.
The sessions lasted for 50 minutes each with the first day of ICCJA ending on keynote speaker Steve Bojira, from The Chicago Reader.
Bojira spoke from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. about his experiences writing articles for papers and how much his work changed his outlook on the people of Chicago.
The conference resumed Friday, April 8 with three sessions starting at 10 a.m. The sessions were: ‘Writing for TV’ with Beth Bennett, ‘Political Reporting in the Digital Age’ with Aaron Cynic, and ‘Covering Sports’ with Joe Gisondi.
The final round of sessions that started at 11a.m. offered: ‘Political Reporting in the Digital Age’ with Aaron Cynic, ‘Editors’ Roundtable’ with college staff editors, and ‘Reporting’ with James Fuller.
Bridge Webmaster Matt Monroe said, “In the future, I’m very interested in making video content so one of the seminars I went to that focused on that really gave me an interesting insight into that world. Also, from another seminar, I learned how I could be a better interviewer, a skill that’ll not only help in journalism, but in life.”
ICCJA was wrapped up with a banquet and award ceremony. Several Bridge students were awarded a total of 14 awards in many different categories.
For more information on ICCJA visit ICCJA.wordpress.com or visit their Facebook page. To find out how you can become involved with The Bridge newspaper, check us out at thelcbridge.com.
