FRIENDS & PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS

CHRIS WHITLEY College Media Association President

How have you interacted with ACP?

I went to the Fall National College Media Convention as a student in 1993. I had seen all the cool places the convention had been to in previous years. That year? It was in Dallas. My hometown. I stayed with my parents, for God’s sakes! But what I lacked in adventurous travel, I more than made up for in insight. It was one of my first tastes of the larger media world around me, and it was exciting.

How do your students interact with ACP?

Through conventions and contests. Our college newspaper staff couldn’t meet for its traditional awards ceremony this year because of COVID, so I drove out and delivered our major awards, including the ACP awards, to our students personally. They were all filled with pride to receive those prestigious honors.

How does CMA’s partnership with ACP affect student media?

I think our two organizations complement each other well. CMA and ACP combine to provide services and recognition that help student media and celebrate it too. Our fall convention, which the two put on each year, is still the nation’s largest gathering of college media, and I’m so excited that we’ll finally get to celebrate it in person.

I’m the president of CMA, but I’m also an ACP member. And I’m proud to be a part of both organizations. Both serve the college media community well and should be supported.

The fact that ACP has been serving college media for 100 years is absolutely worth celebrating, and CMA congratulates ACP on that milestone.

SARAH NICHOLS Journalism Education Association President

How have you interacted with NSPA?

My earliest interaction with NSPA was as a rookie high school yearbook staffer attending my first national convention in D.C. in November 1993, watching one of our editors accept a Best of Show certificate. Seeing thousands of other students packed into row after row around us to celebrate and learn together introduced me to the idea of what a huge and exciting community existed.

In the 25+ years since then, I have thoroughly enjoyed every opportunity to learn and grow with NSPA, serving as a convention speaker at every National High School Journalism Convention except two, judging Best of Show, conducting publication critiques, authoring a past edition of the NSPA Yearbook Guidebook, serving on three or four convention local teams, attending site visits and strategic planning sessions and more.

How do your students interact with NSPA?

Attending conventions is a highlight for my students and something they talk about for years afterward. They also interact with NSPA by taking advantage of online resources, entering our publications in contests, submitting work for critique and applying for recognition through the Journalism Honor Roll, all of which shows their pride in being part of such a meaningful and prestigious national organization specific to their work in student media.

How does JEA’s partnership with NSPA affect scholastic media?

JEA’s long and rich history with NSPA has been a powerful force in the scholastic journalism community. Partnering on conventions has created opportunities to ignite a fire in student journalists from any background.

Together we’re truly sowing seeds of the journalism profession and empowering student voices.

HADAR HARRIS Student Press Law Center Executive director

How have you interacted with NSPA and ACP?

There are a handful of organizations that SPLC considers “siblings,” and NSPA and ACP fill that cherished role. We are all laser-focused on serving student journalists and enabling them to do their jobs at the highest level. SPLC has a long history of partnership with NSPA and ACP, but when I joined SPLC five years ago, I got a quick, deep familiarity with both organizations by diving into fall conventions.

In addition to all of the media law workshops that SPLC held at my first conventions, I had the great privilege of awarding the Courage in Journalism Award and the Reveille Seven Award to bold student journalists. What an awesome time it was to help recognize incredible journalism and to work with the NSPA and ACP teams to celebrate their accomplishments!

We have deepened and expanded our relationship as NSPA and ACP have become key partners in Student Press Freedom Day and we continue to work together to ensure that the legal landscape to protect, support and defend the student press freedom rights of student journalists are realized.

How do the SPLC and NSPA/ACP work together?

The partnership between NSPA/ACP and SPLC is one both of the mind and heart.

In the early years of the SPLC, NSPA/ ACP leadership played a pivotal role through participation on the SPLC Board of Directors, and for about a decade, SPLC Staff Attorney Mike Hiestand penned a monthly It’s the Law column for NSPA/ACP publications and websites.

NSPA/ACP have also been active financial supporters of the SPLC.

The affection, support and partnership of our organizations is key to ensuring that student journalists are supported with solid legal information and provided the tools to produce bold, empowered journalism.

EDMUND J. SULLIVAN Columbia Scholastic Press Association Executive director

How have you interacted with NSPA and ACP?

I first came across NSPA as a high school editor in Massachusetts in the late 1960s. Although we ultimately enrolled in CSPA, I investigated NSPA’s programs and services at that time. I remember picking Columbia only because it was closer to us.

Both organizations began in the 1920s as student-practiced journalism got organized at both the state and national level. It was important to have these groups holding conferences, offering contests and critiques while giving recognition to what student editors had been doing on their own in the schools and colleges.

The group efforts elevated studentpracticed journalism beyond the walls of their schools and colleges. It also trained students in borrowing and adapting best practices from other students’ work. This helped to increase the capability and quality of student media everywhere. What are challenges have the organizations shared?

Challenge No. 1 is the slow but steady decline in importance given the student media as social media have given students many ways to express themselves and get news from varied sources.

The decline in traditional print newspapers and magazines since 2007 has also magnified the illusion that journalism dying. Newspapers are dying as we knew them, but journalism is very much alive. And the skills, techniques and ethics of the best journalistic practices are ever more needed today.

How do young people identify facts from opinion?

How do they grapple with the tidal wave of opinion on social media?

How do they understand what is important to know from what is not?

Traditional print newspapers used to offer an edited, designed presentation of fact and opinion in a quickly digested format. That neatly summed up presentation is now gone replaced by a helter skelter of largely unverified opinion

Young people, in particular, are the worse for the mass confusion that has resulted.