2022 Journalism Adviser Camp

Exterior view of the CCJ Building

Mercer University’s Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism and GSPA are hosting a High School Journalism Advisers Workshop June 6-7, 2022 at the CCJ on Mercer’s Macon campus. The workshop itself is free to attend and applications are due no later than June 1. The workshop includes breakfast and lunch for attendees. In addition, we have reserved a block of rooms by campus at the Hilton Garden Inn. We will start at 10 a.m. June 6 and conclude by 3 p.m. June 7. All sessions are led by the Murphy Center staff and special guest Mark Johnson from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism.  The schedule can be found below. Interested participants should register here.

 

Updated Schedule of Sessions

Monday, June 6

9:30-10 a.m.: Sign-in & Refreshments

10-10:45 OPENING SESSION: Dealing with Burnout. An opportunity for educators to debrief on the past two years and share some advice for dealing with classroom and administrative stressors.

10:45-11:35: SESSION: Project management for the newsroom. Everything is a project – from new courses to workshops to publication planning, we’ll walk you through the basics of how to put a structure in place to plan, track and assess your work. This will include visual planning.

11:40-12:30: SESSION: Developing writer’s curiosity & making writing easy. Some tips for helping students find ideas and then an easy formula for helping them structure their writing.

12:30-1:30: LUNCH BREAK. (We will have lunch on site)

1:30-2:20: SESSION: Encouraging newsroom/staff diversity. Diversity in the newsroom can build better media. More diverse newsrooms can better respond to and cover the needs of their audiences, build trust and even bolster readership/viewership/listening, leading to increased revenues. We’ll explore the cultural and structural forces that discourage some students from pursuing journalism and how to address them. 

2:30-3:20: SESSION: Podcasting for high school newspapers & yearbooks. Podcasts are all the rage and you think you might want to do one, but how do you get started? We demystify the tech, the platforms and the how–to’s of planning a student-led podcast. 

3:30-4:20: SESSION: Building experiential workshops. At the University of Georgia, we have built workshops nearly every semester for the last 17 years that put students in the field with professional journalists as coaches. You can do the same in your community.

4:30-5 p.m.

  • Open session for teachers to share favorite lessons/activities resources OR
  • Roundtable for papers/magazines for review and discussion. 

 

Tuesday, June 7

9-9:30: Breakfast at the Murphy Center

9:30-11:30: HANDS-ON (Choose one)

  • Intro to DSLRs & Composition
  • Introduction to Audio Editing. Regardless of what audio software you use, there are best practices for making engaging audio stories. We’ll walk you through how to identify good soundbites and how to edit, mix and master a compelling story with software and online tools that are free or nearly free. 

11:30-12:30: LUNCH BREAK 

12:30-2:30: HANDS ON (Choose One) 

  • Intro to video editing & video structure 
  • Intro to After Effects 

2:30-3 p.m. Closing/WRAP

The Murphy Center is located at 1675 Montpelier Ave., 31201. There is free parking behind the Murphy Center building that we encourage attendees to utilize.