Four members of the Royals Media staff attended the 92th Annual Spring 2016 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Convention in New York City, New York, on March 17th & 18th. The staff members that attended included sophomores Kattie Iwanski, Aaliyah Capers, Natalie Lobdell, and Ayjah Johnson.
The convention’s main focus was to educate young journalists and writers by giving them tips on digital media, photography, yearbook, newspaper, magazine journalism, law and ethics, and tips for advisers.
The instructional sessions covered a variety of topics. One session that was being offered was “Saving Face” taught by Tiffany Kopcak where Lobdell and Johnson learned new techniques on getting your model to reveal their faces and their emotions.
“The class was basically about how the person in the picture is more important than the picture. It’s better to get the picture that captures their emotions than it is to have a normal ‘mug-shot’ style picture,” Lobdell said.
Other classes offered and attended by the staff included “CSPA Crown Award Overview for Yearbook” taught by Kathleen Zwiebel and “Overwhelmed? Learn to Manage Your publications!” taught by Charlotte Peyton.
After the sessions came to an end the group attended the award ceremony. The CSPA awarded its highest recognition, the Crown award. The hybrid newspaper publication of The Royal News/trnwired.org received a Silver Crown, an award only presented to 52 other schools in the country. Three were a total of 234 Crowns awarded from 1,186 eligible schools.
“It felt really great to be presented the award, but it was also very nerve-wracking to wait to be called for gold or silver, when they called out silver for The Royals News it felt really good to be recognized,” Lobdell said.
“Winning a Silver Crown was great but next year I will try to work harder and stop procrastinating and try to encourage other staff members to stop procrastinating too, so we can win the Gold Crown,” Johnson said.
Other than the classes and the award ceremony the staff toured New York City. They visited popular places including the 9/11 memorial, Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Times Square, and Rockefeller Center.
“The 9/11 memorial was very emotional. I kept tracing the engraved names with my fingers. It was really sad but definitely something i’ll never forget. It was an amazing experience,” Johnson said.
With all the sightseeing and all “the best part was just being there and trying new things and new experiences. I mean there was the subway and I have never been on the subway so that was a new experience for me,” Johnson said.