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ASPA would like to thank our financial supporters: Alabama Press Association • Dow Jones News Fund • UA Center for Community Based Partnerships • Mercedes-Benz Endowment• UA College of Communication and Information Sciences • UA Department of Journalism • Southern Interscholastic Press Association • National Education Association Foundation • The Selma Times-Journal and its board members! President: Melissa Dixon, Oak Mountain High School, Birmingham Vice President: Connie Nolen, Pelham High School, Pelham Secretary: Nikki Minoso, Vestavia High School, Vestavia Past President: Erin Coggins, Sparkman High School, Harvest
ASPA 2012-2013 CALENDAR OF EVENTS December 14: Deadline for all media for competition and critiques. January 31: Senior award deadlines: Bragg, Thomson, Stevenson and Journalist of the Year awards. Administrator and Adviser of the Year award deadlines. Feb. 22-23: ASPA’s State Convention April 1: Deadline to apply for the Multicultural Journalism Workshop June 14-16: The Long Weekend summer camp June 14-23: Multicultural Journalism Workshop
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Fall Regional Workshop Tuscaloosa, Ala. University of Alabama Ferguson Center Sept. 27, 2012
The Alabama Scholastic Press Association offers special thanks to: Dr. Loy Singleton, Dean of the College of Communication and Information Sciences Dr. Jennifer Greer, Chair, the University of Alabama Department of Journalism Alabama Scholastic Press Association Director Emeritus Marie Parsons The Alabama Press Association
Welcome! 8:30 a.m.Welcome and introductions, Ferguson Theatre Dr. Treva Dean, Asst. Dean, College of Communication and Information Sciences Meredith Cummings, Director, Alabama Scholastic Press Association
Sessions
Session 1 9:30-10:30 Verbal SNAP!, Bruce Watterson, Room 300 (Yearbook) Content and Coverage: Why close enough is not good enough. Use a different structure as a base to showcase content for your publication. Ways to ensure that your reader is rewarded for purchasing and reading great work. Really! Anchoring Basics:, Jody Evans, Room 360 Forum (Multimedia/Broadcast) Be the talent that brings the stories to your audience in the right style. Learn ways to warm up, present, and speak effectively on camera. This hands on session will get you up and moving while giving you techniques to showcase your ability to introduce a story. Found Language, Sally Rodgers, Room 307 (Literary Magazine) Do you ever have trouble getting started? Do you ever wonder to yourself, “What, oh what will I ever find to write about today?” In this workshop, we’ll learn how to use collage techniques and found language (from newspapers, magazines, the trash can and even — gasp! — other poems!) in your own poetry, so from now on, you can let someone else “get started” for you. I Wish I Knew That!, Room 301 (Newspaper) University of Alabama Society of Professional Journalist members will present tips and tricks that every aspiring journalist should know going into college to get ahead of the game. We will present advice from college lectures, tricks we have learned through student media internships and jobs, and things we learned the hard way in a fun, interactive “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: Journalism Edition” game. You can also win a prize by acing our AP style quiz and proving to be the most knowledgeable high school journalist in terms of AP style.
Concrete Images: Sentences that Hit Hard” Kenny Kruse and Danilo Thomas, Room 313 (Literary Magazine) The class will basically be about how to use as few, specific words as possible to create both a scene and a feeling. How to use sparse concrete and sensory detail to build classical aspects of narrative such as character and scene. We will be using the Haiku form to demonstrate this as the Haiku uses sparse, but loaded images that utilize a turn then dissolve, filling the reader with a sense of time and place while requiring them to bring themsleves to the poem. If the writer utilizes this strategy line by line in their poems and stories then they will be able to construct solid images without being vague or ethereal. Newspaper Design Crash Course Alex Houser, Room 301 (Newspaper) Get a look at the best scholastic designs over the past years. Find out what the designer did right and why they got the judges attention. Go over simple rules that will make your design pop and bring your paper to the next level. So Many Mediums, So Little Time!, SPJ, Room 309 (All Media) University of Alabama student media professionals from online, radio, print and broadcast mediums will demonstrate how to effectively get ahead in the media business today. We will demonstrate how to write for each medium and how to compile a diverse resume throughout college that will be useful to employers upon graduation. This session will focus on how to learn a little bit of everything so each graduating journalist has the competitive edge to land that job. One Stop Sports Shop, Scott Bowman and Morgan Upton, Room 312, Morris Mayer Room (All Media) This photographer/sports editor dynamo team will help you learn to take great pictures and write thrilling sports stories. Session leaders will teach how to work with what you have within your school’s budget, or buy big! Leave with everything you need to know to cover your school’s sports teams. Aim and Shoot like Steven Spielberg, Jody Evans, Room 360 Forum (Multimedia/Broadcast) Using video clips from famous movies (and some not so famous), this session will teach participants how to use movie style filming to get the best shots for broadcast or multimedia. Participants will get to use cameras and test their skills to tell a story. Session 3 11:30-12:30
Tips For Improving Photo Composition, Dan Meissner, Room 309 (All Media) Learn to make your photos jump off the page with easy composition techniques. This session will help staffs of all types take better photos for publications and websites.
The Best Yearbooks I’ve Seen This Year, Bruce Watterson, Room 300 (Yearbook) Why some staffs seem to nail a great concept, while others fail to hit the mark. A look at the best of 2012 with an eye to 2013.
Storytelling With Sound, Pat Duggins, Alabama Public Radio, Room 313 (Multimedia/Broadcast) This session will cover the use of background sound in audio recordings, and how it makes stories more listenable, understandable, and memorable. Students will learn how this element can become part of the narrative to transport the listener to where the story takes place.
Less Is More: Lit Mag Layout and Design, Emma Sovich, Room 307 (Literary Magazine) A look at design elements of literary magazine and journals from across the country, and some practical advice for designing and laying out your own lit mag.
Online, Brian Reynolds, Room 312, Morris Mayer Room (Multimedia) Social media has created new opportunities and challenges for journalists. Reynolds will discuss how programs like Twitter and Facebook can be utilized to interact with readers, drive traffic, gather information and produce content for the Web. He will also discuss how to write stories for the Web, while packaging elements into multimedia content items. Session 2 10:30-11:30 ASPA Board meeting at this time open to all advisers, in Room 302 Anderson Room Creative Possibilities!, Bruce Watterson, Room 300 (Yearbook) Too few choices? Think again. There are hundreds of untold ways to add dynamic photos and graphics to your publication. Foster a unique approach to the coverage of sensitive issues, lifestyles and social media activities. You’ve just gotta know where to look and how to draw in the readers.
Get Ideas From The Best, Susan Newell, 301 (Newspaper, Yearbook) Examine the writing of professionals. Use description, in-depth reporting and compelling leads to pull readers in. Careers and Internships in Media, Meredith Cummings, David Joyner, Bobby Mathews, Room 309 (All Media) Join the SPJ Alabama Professional chapter as they team up with the SPJ University of Alabama chapter to talk about internships and careers available in media. Ya Gotta Get a Gimmick, Jody Evans, Room 360 Forum (All Media) Set your program apart by using promotional products! Look at how advertising impacts our society and how you can use basic advertising tips to make your program stand out.
Keynote Speaker – Verna Gates Verna Gates reports for the world’s largest news organization, Reuters International News Service with 1 billion readers and 417,000 media outlets around the world. In 2009, she was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the National Federation of Presswomen, the Communicator of Achievement Award. She has won numerous national awards for her articles. She has covered some of the nation’s top stories including the BP Oil Spill, Alabama’s April 27 tornadoes, immigration laws and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential launches. She has also traveled the world writing travel stories about destinations from beaches to art openings to historic sites. Her career began as one of the original 50 employees of CNN who worked to launch the network. She worked for CNN as a writer/producer for four years. She also reported
for TIME Magazine. In 2006, Gates founded Fresh Air Family (www.freshairfamily.org<http://www.freshairfamily.org>), a 10,000 member state-wide organization dedicated to outdoor education. The non-profit offers more than 400 outdoor education programs across the state. She also teaches ethnobotany at a local college. As a plant lore expert, she has appeared on NBC NightSide, National Public Radio in Canada, Voice of America, Pulse of the Planet, FOX 6 News and many more. For her conservation work, she has been named Alabama Conservationist of the Year by the Alabama Environmental Council, an Alabama Treasure by the Huntsville Times, and One of Alabama’s Unforgettable Faces by the Alabama Bureau of Tourism.
Session Leaders
Dianne Bragg is a faculty member of the journalism department at the University of Alabama, where she teaches media law, writing and journalism history. Her research interest areas are antebellum, Civil War, and early twentieth century newspapers. Her published work includes a chapter in The Media in America, A History (Vision Press, 2011). She is actively involved in the American Journalism Historians Association, currently serving as the Research-in-Progress coordinator for AJHA’s national conference.
Tara Bullock is a graduate student studying journalism at The University of Alabama. She also earned her undergraduate degrees, a B.A. in English and a B.A.C. in Journalism, from UA. She’s currently the graduate assistant for the Alabama Scholastic Press Association and the National Elementary School Press Association. Bullock has worked as an editor at The Dome, a University of Alabama online arts magazine, a production intern with The RoundTable, a sports talk show on WJOX 94.5 FM and as a design intern at The Tuscaloosa News. Scott Bowman is a freelance photographer who shoots Alabama football for publications such as Crimson magazine, as well as various promotional advertising materials for businesses. He also shoots weddings and portraits. Before becoming a photographer, he spent more than a decade on the air as a DJ, as well as programming Alabama radio stations.
Pat Duggins is news director at Alabama Public Radio, and led his team through the April 27th tornadoes that devastated Alabama in 2011. The APR team’s work was recognized with a National Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society for Professional Journalists, and a National Edward R. Murrow Award from Radio Television Digital News Association. He also covered both the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters on NPR. These Shuttle tragedies are chronicled in his book “Final Countdown: NASA and the end of the Space Shuttle Program,” which is out in audio book form. Duggins has also lectured about NASA at Harvard and writes about space for the largest news magazine in China. Jody Evans teaches broadcast journalism at Hillcrest High School. She recently received the Rising Star Award from the Journalism Education Association for her work with PATS-TV, the Tuscaloosa County School’s only broadcast television show. In 2009 she received ASPA’s Susie DeMent Journalism Adviser of the Year Award. She writes a blended family column for Tuscaloosa’s local magazine, KidsLife. Her stories often come from her family of six kids, one husband, three goats, twelve chickens, and too many honeybees to count.
Alex Hauser is a senior at Northridge High School in Tuscaloosa, AL. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of The Northridge Reporter for her second year and President of Northridge High School’s Quill and Scroll International Honor Society for high school journalists. She has won state, regional and national awards at the several conventions she’s attended all over the United States, including the 2011 Fall National Scholastic Press Association Convention in Minneapolis, Minnesota where her paper received 1st Place Best-of-Show for an 8-page newspaper. She plans to double major in journalism and education at the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!) and study abroad during some point in her college career. She would like to thank her advisor, Susan Newell, for having so much faith in her during her high school career. David Joyner is vice president of content for Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., based in Montgomery, Ala. He works with publishers, editors and journalists who cover 150 communities in 24 states in the South, East and Midwest. Joyner has led the staffs of daily newspapers in Massachusetts including The Eagle-Tribune in North Andover, where he was senior managing editor; The Salem News, where he was managing editor; and the Gloucester Daily Times, where he was editor. Previously he was projects editor for four Massachusetts dailies. He also worked as a reporter for newspapers in Massachusetts, Georgia and Alabama, as well as news organizations in Washington, D.C. Joyner was a political communication major at The George Washington University, where he worked on the independent student newspaper, The G.W. Hatchet. He was the Donald W. Reynolds Nieman Fellow in Community Journalism at Harvard University during the 2011-12 year. Joyner is an officer of the Alabama professional chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Kenny Kruse is a student in the MFA of Creative Writing at the University of Alabama. He is originally from Utah and began writing fiction when he was in high school.
Bobby Mathews spent 15 years as an award-winning journalist. From news to sports to features, he’s done a little bit of everything -- including assignments ranging from reporter-atlarge in New York following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to managing editor of daily newspapers in Wyoming, Georgia and Alabama. A graduate of Hall School of Journalism at Troy University, he lives in Tuscaloosa with his wife and son, and is working on his second novel.
Dan Meissner has served as a newspaper reporter, photographer, editor and designer. He has more than 30 years of experience teaching journalism at The University of Alabama in reporting, editing and visual journalism courses. At UA, he also coordinates journalism internships at media outlets throughout the state and nation.
Susan Newell, MJE and NBCT, has advised award-winning newspapers and yearbooks for 28 years. She is JEA Director for Alabama, a SIPA board member and a former ASPA president. She is an Alabama Advisor of the Year, a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Special Recognition Advisor and Distinguished Advisor, and an ASNE Reynolds HSJ Institute fellow. She advises The Northridge Reporter newspaper and blueprints yearbook.
Sally Rodgers grew up in Tucson, Az. She is now pursuing her MFA in Poetry at the University of Alabama, where she teaches Composition and Creative Writing.
Danilo Thomas is a MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Alabama where he was the Fiction Editor for Black Warrior Review issues 38.1 and 38.2. He was raised in southwestern Montana and currently lives in Northport, Alabama. His work was a recent finalist for the 2012 Italo Calvino Prize in fiction, and can be found, or is forthcoming in Bull, Parcel, Whitefish Review, Juked, Mason’s Road, Midwestern Gothic, Fiction Southeast, 751magazine, The Offending Adam, Precipitate, and other publications.
Brian Reynolds has worked at The Tuscaloosa News since January 2009, serving as Web Content Editor since March 2011. A 2008 graduate of the University of Alabama’s journalism program, Reynolds manages the newspaper’s web presence across several sites and social media platforms, while producing multimedia content. The News has won a number of awards for its online work in recent years, including the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage.
Emma Sovich edits Black Warrior Review and is an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of Alabama. Morgan Upton is in her final undergraduate semester studying journalism at The University of Alabama. While at Alabama, she was a member of the Crimson White sports staff, covering volleyball and softball. Upton also interned at The Tuscaloosa News as a prep sports reporter. Over the summer Upton worked as the sports editor for the Choctaw-Sun Advocate in Choctaw County. She is currently a high school football stringer for The Tuscaloosa News, while continuing to work long distance for the Sun.
Having taught in 47 states and multiple countries around the world, C. Bruce Watterson enjoys working with aspiring young journalists to create thought-provoking and creative publications. He claims he has never met a pica he didn’t like. As chairperson for Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Judging Standards and Practices Commission, he oversees hundreds of entries in the Association’s annual Circle and Crown competition annually. Known for advising the country’s first desktop yearbook in the eighties, Watterson pushes staffs to re-write, re-design and re-shoot in order to successfully reward their readers Dr. Watterson recently won the Joseph W. Murphy Award for service to collegiate and scholastic journalism presented by Columbia University. He believes Mark Twain was right when he said, “the almost-right word is simply not the right word...it is the difference between lightning bug and lightning.” For Watterson, the same applies to photos, design, use of color, content and the elements of great publishing.
Save the date! We hope to see you at the State Convention in February! Feb. 22-23 University of Alabama campus Ferhuson Center