The annual Journalism Education Association Convention kicked off this year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Journalism students from all over the country came together to exhibit their work and gain new perspectives of how to improve their publications.
The convention lasted four days and three nights from November 7-10 as 17 of Freedom High School students attended the convention to represent each of their journalism classes: newsmagazine, broadcast and yearbook.
The trip began with the convention on the first day, allowing students to talk with various colleges’ media schools. In addition, there were raffles to enter and games to play. Followed the next day with 45 minute journalism-specific classes to gather insight on how to improve the different journalism styles.
“It was super fun getting to learn a new perspective from professional journalists and journalism teachers from other states,” said senior Keira McDowell, [Uncaged.] editor-in-chief.
The second day began with new things. The Freedom attendees went their separate ways exploring the classes within the convention. There were many different private sessions which aligned with the different students’ interests and deeper exploration of their journalism strengths.
“I learned a lot about cameras and sports photography. I also got some good feedback from professionals at the conventions about my cooking videos,” said junior Ethan Broady, broadcast student.
Students learned many things they never thought about before. Along with that many ways to improve their individual skills and ways to motivate and teach others. Getting a sense of new knowledge may help develop methods and strategies to share amongst their classmates to make their individual websites, videos, pictures, and writing skills better.
The third day started off with critiques where each journalism class from FHS got a chance to have their work overviewed by experts and were given tips on how to improve their skill. This was an opportunity where magazines, websites, yearbooks, and photos were deeply reviewed and taken into consideration and critiqued for future work.
“ It was super great to see [uncaged] placed so well at a national event and I’m excited to see what we can do this year with some of the critiques we got,” McDowell said.
JEA also had an award ceremony on Saturday where [Uncaged.] had three finalists in the national NSPA competition. For Online Story of the Year, [Uncaged.] got 3rd place with Surahbi Komanduri’s story on student stress and an honorable mention for Shrika Balaji’s story on lesser known electives. Then [Uncaged.] got 4th place in the interactive graphic category for FHS’ senior map by Micheal Baker II and Pratha Ravani.
Additionally this year, [Uncaged.] also placed in the VHSL state competition with Emmie Duong placing first for her coffee shop cover last year and Keira McDowell being a finalist for an opinion on the harm of the A+ system.
The final day of the trip concluded with a tour around Philadelphia in the Big Bus seeing historic sites such as Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Love Park, and eating lunch in Chinatown.
Photos by Reza Zahed.
Disclaimer: Below is a photo gallery of the Journalism JEA Trip from Thursday Nov. 7 through Sunday Nov. 10. If any of the photo gallery photos are reposted or shared on other social media, credit MUST BE given to the website and photographer.
