Pennsylvania School Press Association

Want to weigh in on a topic to be offered at the regional conference in Carlisle on Oct. 3?  Even if you’re in a different region, please weigh in on what topics would be helpful to your staff.  Vote in the online poll, or let us know in the comments below.

Interviewing skills
Deciding what’s newsworthy (Beginner/intermediate session)
Localizing state and national stories
Writing tighter
Crafting compelling leads

Something else?

Change.  It’s a part of our lives as it has never been before.

PSPA is changing too.

First big change: we’ve planned no state conference for next year.  Instead, we encourage all PA student journalists to attend the JEA/NSPA conference in Washington, D.C., next November (for more information go to http://jea.org/workshops/fall09/index.html).  Many of you will also attend the NCTE/PCTELA conference in Philadelphia in November (http://ncte.org/annual).

Last year the membership expressed a great deal of support for PSPA Regional Conferences.  It seems that in 2009 it’s much easier to bring students together for a one-day event, particularly if school isn’t in session that day.  In response, we’re planning one-day conferences this fall, including Write-Offs, in the Erie (October 12^th , Mercyhurst College), Pittsburgh (Point Park College, November 6^th ; Waynesburg, October 30^th ) , Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and Allentown areas. Some of these conferences will be in conjunction with already-established college programs; others will be new initiatives.

Interested in helping plan? Robert.hankes@gmail.com.

We’re looking at giving Regional Awards to student journalists, teachers and friends of journalism, in addition to state awards.

We’ll also make greater use of the Internet next year.  Our August board meeting will take place online, saving the board members travel time and the association money.  We’ll be uploading Podcasts to the website this summer, and we’re looking into Webinars for the fall.

As journalism, technology, and schools change, PSPA will change.  A great way to stay current: create an account on the PSPA website.  It’s fast, free, and puts you in touch with student journalists and advisers from all over the state.  www.paschoolpress.org, left-hand column on the welcome page.

As always, thank you for your support of student journalism in Pennsylvania.

Editors of California High School’s Burgundian listen as Janice Hatfield offers suggestions for improving their newspaper.

Waynesburg University and the Pennsylvania School Press Association collaborated to welcome 177 local yearbook and newspaper students and 11 advisers to Media Day on the University campus on October 30.

Participants included students from Laurel Highlands, Laurel Valley, Belle Vernon, California Area, Bentworth, Carmichaels, Canon McMillan, John Marshall (WV), Greater Latrobe, and Kiski Area High Schools, as well as middle school students from Ben Franklin School.

Cari Frei of Taylor Publishing and Cheryl Franzmann and Kathryn Phillips of Walsworth introduced students to new yearbook trends and offered pointers on yearbook theme development and creating award-winning yearbooks.

Guided by Waynesburg Department  of Communications  Chair, Professor Richard Krause, a team of  Waynesburg’s Communication students, headed by Kristen Corbett, Student Event Coordinator, and Erin Crawshaw, Public Relations senior, planned and implemented the workshop.  Janice Hatfield, Newspaper Chair, represented PSPA in helping to organize the event.

Students could choose sessions on sports writing, convergence, headlines, generating story ideas, feature writing, editorial writing, newsroom, management, feature writing, and newspaper design. On-site critiques of newspapers and yearbooks were also conducted.

Both advisers and students were impressed by the amount of valuable information offered. One adviser described the experience as “very invigorating.”