By Courtney Wentz | Editor-in-Chief
Over spring break, the Mount Observer staff went to the National College Media Convention in New York City, where we had to attend seminars.
One of the first seminars was titled, “FBI Strategies for Interviewing,” lead by Professor Holly Johnson from Mercer County Community College in New Jersey. Instead of only asking questions, she suggested we keep our judgement to ourselves, try to understand where the interviewee is coming from, and adjusting our questions and approach to accommodate a thinking or feeling personality type.
Another favorite seminar was titled, “In a New Era of Fake News: Fact-Checking as an Art & Science,” run by Brooke Borel, author of The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking, Laura Moorhead from San Francisco State University, and Robert Liguori from The New York Times Magazine, along with three others. This was more laid back than other seminars, where they mostly explained the importance of fact-checking, and how to make fact-checker’s job easier. In their handout, they suggested having the journalist’s notes, voice recordings with marks of where a quote was pulled from, and documents used leading up to the story being written.
One more seminar stood out titled, “Winning the Media Life: Working, Living, Leading (Even When You’re a Millennial!),” lead by Ann Shoket and Joanne Lipman. They had a conversation about what it will take to be successful in the journalism field, for those graduating between now and the next few years. This seminar was slightly boring in some places, but it was nice to see the word “millennial” attached to something positive for once.
We went to this convention to expand our minds and learn new ideas and concepts happening in the journalism field. Despite having to come home early, due to the snow storm, we did learn new things as journalists and students.
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