“If We Don’t Cover Our Community, Who Will?”: TBL attends the National College Media Summit

TBL attended the National College Media Summit in Washington D.C. from Oct. 31 – Nov. 3. The event was organized by the College Media Association and Associated Collegiate Press. The convention featured over 275 different educational sessions, several networking opportunities, and was attended by more than 1,500 student journalists. Many colleges and universities were represented and were given awards for their reporting. Among the winners were The OU Daily from the University of Oklahoma who won the Best Four-Year College Media Outlet of the Year award and Central Michigan Life from Central Michigan University who won the Best Weekly Newspaper of the Year award.

One of the most important features of the convention were the keynote speakers. Marty Baron, Executive editor of The Washington Post talked about his team’s investigation into the Roman Catholic Church’s cover-up of child sex abuse in the Boston Archdioceses when he wrote for The Boston Globe. The investigation earned Baron a Pulitzer Prize and was the plotline of the Academy Award winning film “Spotlight.” Baron spoke to the audience about bravery saying, “Sometimes you will uncover a story that you didn’t ever want to tell, but you must find the courage to tell it.”

The second keynote speaker, Nina Totenberg, the Political-Affairs corresponded for NPR talked about breaking the story involving sexual assault allegations by Anita Hill against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas prior to his confirmation on the court. Dubbed the “Queen of the Leak,” Totenberg’s career in journalism has culminated in her position at NPR where she reports on the Supreme Court’s rulings. She gave her predictions to those in Friday’s audience about the Court’s 2020 decisions saying, “I think we will see the overturn of Roe v. Wade or the dismantling of it to a degree that renders it useless.” Totenberg also predicted that “we will see an expansion of second amendment rights in 2020 because of Judge [Brett] Kavanaugh.”

The final keynote address was by Rick Hutzell and Alex Mann of Annapolis’ The Capital Gazette. On June 28, 2018, gunman Jerrod Ramos killed five reporters and injured two others in a mass shooting attack at the newspaper’s office. Hutzell, the Editor-in-Chief, was coincidentally on vacation with his family when his staff went under fire. He discussed rebuilding his news team and the struggles of returning to normal in the face of tragedy. Since the shooting 15 months ago, The Capital Gazette has continued to report on their own tragedy, which earned them a Pulitzer Prize in 2019. The newspaper, a small regional one that covers many rural areas, is similar to the Cumberland Times-News of Cumberland, Maryland. When asked about how his journalists keep a close relationship with the subjects he writes about, Hutzell remarked, “You know, our job is to create a common set of facts. We are the glue of our community and if we don’t cover our community, who will?”

The conventional breakout sessions covered a number of topics; including, “How to File a Freedom of Information Act Request,” “Women in Media,” and “How to Navigate the Administration.” The conference offered topics related to newspaper reporting, podcasts, photography, yearbooks, magazines, and literary magazines

Besides offering the opportunity for TBL staff to meet other student journalists and get fresh ideas, the conference provided inspiration. After all, as Rick Hutzell said, “A good newsroom is one where there is a conversation about what’s interesting.”

The next National College Media Summit will be held in Atlanta, Georgia in fall 2020.