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Every year, The Eagle sends a group of staffers to attend the National College Media Convention. This year, the fall convention was located right here in D.C. and provided student journalists from all over the country with the opportunity to attend educational seminars, network and learn from renowned speakers, such as Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of Watergate fame.
Local News Reporter Gabe Castro-Root, Life Staff Writer Maria Tedesco and I attended the convention this year representing The Eagle during a time when student press freedom is not always a given. Therefore, being able to take advantage of a space where student journalists from all walks of life can gather in the same room to problem solve and teach each other was invaluable.
We learned from professional journalists, student media advisors and other experts about how to improve our coverage of a myriad of topics, such as climate change, disability representation and the #MeToo movement. We heard advice on how to better utilize and more efficiently obtain public records, which are akey tenets of investigative journalism. We also learned how to better practice trauma-informed journalism to ensure our reporting minimizes harm.
We heard the struggles of other student journalists from a variety of schools from almost every corner of the nation, and many of them were the same as our own. How can we effectively report on a private university with no legal obligation to release information to us? How can we combat burnout and distress among our staff as a result of witnessing and reporting on disturbing events? How can we win back the trust of community members who have been hurt by our work?
These are questions we as student journalists grapple with every day, and not just at The Eagle. But the more we continue talking to each other and seek out opportunities to learn, the closer we can come to impactful solutions.
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