Pack News Takes on Journalism Convention

Some of the pack news staff went to the National High school Journalism Convention in San Francisco April 20th, 2022. The convention included people from schools all over the U.S. Some students from other countries have come to the event all the way from Asia. The editors that participated were Samantha Trujillo, Emma Briones, Ashlin Morris and Audrina Natividad.

 The event only happens twice per year at a random location in the U.S. No other schools from Bakersfield will attend nationals this year. The students are there to take classes to learn how to become a “better editor”.  The classes were based on what section the editors were in. The classes teach you how to create a better sports layout. These classes are to help the editors improve their writing and editing skills. All the schools that went to the convention brought their newspaper to compare to each other and to get advice on how to improve. The Ridgeview students at Ridgeview were humbled when they compared their newspaper to other schools, the editors were told that “your papers lack personality because the papers are lacking color and creativity.” 

Samantha Trujillo mentioned that “She hopes to get a lot out of this event not only me but all the editors that are going can learn a lot and bring that information to share it with staff writers, make better corrections, have better stories, ask better questions.” Trujillo wanted to go because, “It’s a learning opportunity to become better.” She also said that the convention is eye opening. For next year Trujillo hopes to learn better questions, how to be more confident during interviews, and ways to improve the layout of the newspaper.

 Natividad stated that she felt that the conference, “Was good and informative. I learned a lot of ways to improve our newspaper for next year.” She added that the best thing during the convention was, “During her first session the speaker did group involvement and activities to help them improve on our skills.” Natividad also mentioned that the experience is for the editors to improve their skills. The final thing she mentioned is the media swap, where the schools bring their own newspaper to show the other schools to compare and share notes to one another.