On Monday April 7th, many of the writers for our newspaper The Trumpet as well as some of our yearbook staff attended the journalism summit at Lehigh Carbon Community College. They listened to speakers, attended breakout rooms, and learned extensively about writing.
The event kicked off with an intro from the event’s organizers and a get-to-know-you activity where they got to meet fellow journalists from other schools.
After that, some people went to see speaker Ben Stemrich talk about how to effectively interview someone, and one group got to see a tour of the studio. The students also got to look around and see publications from other schools.
After a quick break, students got to hear the incredible story of A.J. Moncman, a communications student at East Stroudsburg University who aspires to be a sports journalist. He also helps coach the ESU football team (he specifically works with long snappers) and he has worked with D11 sports, a local organization that helps students get into sports journalism. He managed to do all of that while being blind, he says his family of coaches was a major positive influence on him.
After lunch, the students went into 2 breakout sessions of their choice. There were numerous options available, with one room discussing the use of AI in journalism, one teaching writers how to make their stories more narrative-focused, one teaching students how to market their school newspaper (delivered by the editor-in-chief of the Emmaus newspaper The Stinger!), and more!
The day ended with a meet and greet with presenters and some closing remarks, leaving all students more educated on how to become better journalists.
On what she learned, yearbook staff member Avery McConnell said, “I learned how to conduct interviews better as well as how to brainstorm ideas better as I went to Emmaus’s session about how they changed their entire layout, and that was cool.” When asked about how she would apply her knowledge to the yearbook, she said, “I’d say for the conducting interviews part, I’ll definitely conduct interviews better. And I would try to find unique stories, with different people that we usually interview.”
The Trumpet and our Yearbook certainly learned a lot from the summit!
