Falcon newspaper staff learns from NorCal Media Day conference

Gathering from across northern California, journalism students and teachers cultivated skills to improve their school publications at the annual NorCal Media Day conference on Sept. 24 in Palo Alto High School’s spacious Media Arts Center.

NorCal Media Day, an annual conference open to all journalism students across the state, consisted of three sessions that discussed the different aspects of storytelling and their timeliness, which was highlighted in this year’s theme: “Now, Soon, Later, Forever.”

During the third session, editors-in-chief Karissa Dong, Katherine Sun, Eileen Toh and Rachel Zhang attended a gathering with other editors-in-chief at an “EIC Roundtable,” where they discussed strengths and weaknesses in their papers, and production structures.

"In Saratoga, we don’t have that much exposure to other school newspapers, so it was interesting to see how other high schools did it,” Toh said.

One high school, instead of having a class devoted to newspaper, had an after school club where everyone shared one computer to complete layout.

“It was really eye-opening because I didn’t realize we were so privileged,” Toh said.

Meanwhile, juniors Daphne Liu and Charin Park and sophomores Karen Chow, Ava Hooman, Chelsea Leung and Muthu Palaniappan attended other sessions, learning about ways coverage can be improved.

Park, who also attended NorCal Media Day last year, said that by being exposed to the different methods other staffs use in producing a newspaper, she has learned how The Falcon can improve.

In one of the sessions she attended, called Diversifying Sports, students were introduced to the idea of investigative reporting for sports, which Park calls “pretty uncommon.”

But what all the newspaper students took away from the conference was the importance of using social media for immediate coverage of events.

“The Falcon doesn’t really use Twitter, it doesn’t really do live blogging of football games, things that other schools are doing a lot better — they’re using more social media,” newspaper adviser Mike Tyler said.

The conference hosted events in which school publications could be entered, as well as individual competitions.

For example, Gunn High’s newspaper The Oracle, which ended up winning in the Best of the West newspaper competition, specialized in immediate coverage of events, an area that The Falcon staff has recognized as a shortcoming.

Tyler said there is a lot that can be learned from this conference.

“This particular event is a showcase for students to be inspired by what’s going on elsewhere in journalism,” Tyler said. “This year’s event was really good in terms of being a guideline for where The Falcon can go.”