Pre-conference workshops

$25 per workshop per person
10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Thursday, March 9

Know what it takes to be career-ready

You’ve done the work toward your degree, but are you career-ready?

Learn the steps you’ll need to take to prepare yourself for applying for your next internship or job. We will discuss the job market and how to speak the language of recruiters. We’ll break down the do’s and don’ts of resume writing and cover best practices for cover letters, interviews and networking.

Nicole Vargas, San Diego City College, moderator

Developing inclusive leaders

It is imperative for modern media leaders to develop inclusive behaviors that foster environments where staffers feel trusted, valued, and heard.

Because even the best-intentioned leaders can be derailed by tradition, bias, fear, poor communication and lack of accountability, we will address how these issues contribute to non-inclusive newsrooms and develop a blueprint for creating inclusive organizations that leverage the diverse talents of all contributors.

Tamara Zellars Buck, Southeast Missouri State University

Changes and challenges:
A crash course on leading your team through it all

Your newsroom faces enormous change and challenges as the college media landscape rapidly evolves. Navigating it requires leadership and this crash course will help you find ways to meet those challenges and equip you with tools you can use to make sound decisions.

Elizabeth Smith, Pepperdine University
Chuck Clark, Western Kentucky University 

Engage your audience and improve your content

This session will help you consider your audience not as consumers but as collaborators. Learn some of the basic tools to help you reach and engage with your audience more effectively.

Amy DeVault, Wichita State University
Lisa Renze-Rhodes, Ball State University

Visual storytelling
with the international Society for News Design

We have been telling each other stories in order to live since time immemorial, but the ways in which we can tell stories have grown.

Join the Society for News Design, an international organization of journalists who practice visual storytelling, in an interactive workshop where we explore the techniques that help us disseminate truthful information and analysis to the world through words, visuals, design, data, product and, yes, code.

You will brainstorm your own projects based on a common prompt and receive feedback on pencil sketches and wireframes while learning the value of collaborating with a diverse group of peers.

Then we will look at an actual project with print and digital components that peels back the curtain on how visual storytellers operate in a newsroom. 

Alex Fong, deputy creative director for projects, San Francisco Chronicle, and SND board member

Paige K. Connor, founder and CEO, pkcxstrategy, and SND Foundation president

Practical legal tools to protect your reporters

One of the nation’s top legal resources for student journalists, Mike Hiestand will share dozens of examples and helpful, common-sense advice for collegiate reporters on the front lines of coverage. Since 1991, Hiestand has answered media law questions from nearly 20,000 student journalists and their advisers through the Student Press Law Center’s free legal hotline. 

Mike Hiestand, Student Press Law Center