College Media Advisors Conference in New York City: A Firsthand Account

Back in November at our college newspaper staff meeting, we were given the opportunity to travel to New York City for the annual College Media Advisors conference. The conference was designed to give us advice from newspaper advisors and those working in the media industry about careers, newspaper leadership, issues college newspaper editors were facing, and so much more.

Initially I wasn't sure about attending because I didn't want to sacrifice some of my spring break to go. However, my advisor convinced me it would be useful to me since I would be taking over the news editor position next year. After reading about the sessions and being persuaded once or twice more, I agreed to go.

Once we arrived in New York City, we registered and received a booklet with a schedule for all the sessions along with our conference issued nametags. Beforehand, our advisor had given us a sheet recommending some sessions we should go to. We were all expected to attend at least six sessions, including one of her recommendations.

My first session of the day was one on plagiarism. Our speakers were an advisor and an editorial panel from the newspaper for a Florida community college. They spoke to us about a real life experience they had with a staff writer fabricating details in an article. They showed us a copy of the article with the writers' identity blacked out. First, we were asked about the positives of the story, then we had to figure out how we could tell that the article was plagiarized. In this particular story, the quotes were very generic and sounded like something anyone could make up off the top of their head.