Every February, the conference rooms of the Hyatt on Capitol Square in Columbus turn into miniature newsrooms when editors, publishers and reporters from small newspapers across the state meet for the Ohio Newspaper Association convention.
The convention hosts big-name speakers and other events for the professionals to attend, all of which are compiled in a newsletter produced by a student news bureau, which interviews all the major players for its content.
A rotating staff of students from one of the state's four accredited journalism schools makes up the bureau each year.
2006 marked Kent State's year to come back to Columbus, and associate journalism professor Barb Hipsman was on hand for her third stint as Kent JMC's faculty representative.
View a PDF of the newsletter produced by JMC students
"It was a lot easier this year," she said. "We had better equipment and the production was good, too. It's much easier now."
The student staff of 12 reporters, designers and photographers produced their content in the student media conference room as well as from their rooms in the Hyatt.
Sophomore information design majors Stephanie Park and Katie Carlson were the designers who scrambled to put the newsletter together in the limited 48-hour time frame. The ONA-issued laptops came equipped with the Quark design program, which forced the InDesign-vets to make a few adjustments.
"ONA seemed very prepared in terms of putting on the conference," Carlson said, "but when it came to them helping us with the conference they were a little behind the times."
Daily Kent Stater assistant photo editor Gavin Jackson was one of three photographers shooting assignments and turning them into the designers on constant deadlines. Jackson found the break-neck pace of production to be very rewarding, but cited the staff visit to the Columbus Dispatch newsroom as his favorite part of the conference.
"It was really interesting to see a different newsroom for a
Above: Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist and JMC alum, Connie Schultz, talks to ONA conference. Below: JMC Associate Professor, Barb Hipsman, gives Daily Kent Stater editor, Ryan Lowe, a tour of the statehouse in Columbus.
change," he said. "You see how streamlined everything is in the real world. It seemed to work for them, the way they organized their information, and we should try do that as editors as well."
Story by Andrew Hampp
Photos by Gavin Jackson
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