The Pointer UW-Stevens Point Student Newspaper
This past Thursday through Sunday Anyon Rettinger, our online editor, Genevieve Adamski, our environmental editor and myself had the pleasure of attending the 33rd Annual ACP National College Journalism Convention in San Francisco, California.
To say the least, we were extremely excited not only to be able to get the chance to represent The Pointer at a national journalism conference, but we were also eager to learn from experienced journalists.
The Pointer was also lucky enough to win second place nationally in Best Multimedia Package created by Shay Spatz’s, our former multimedia reporter, for her coverage of Arts Bash 2016.
I learned a lot from this conference, but I am happy to report that the most important lesson I learned was something extremely simple: about 65 percent of the time I suck at my job. Seriously.
I do not mean to wreck my own credibility as an editor or writer, but I honestly believe that there is always room to grow in this profession.
One week I think an article I either edited or wrote is the greatest thing in the world only to find out the next week that it is the worst piece I have ever written or submitted to the printing press.
Photo by Anyon Rettinger.
We all make mistakes though, and that’s okay as long as we learn from them.
All the professors and professionals had a similar message throughout several days of sessions: we can and will continue to grow as writers, as designers,as media coverers and as people.
These presenters stressed that we should constantly be attempting to make our paper the best it can possibly be. That may mean coming up with completely new, out of the box story ideas, design concepts, or media coverage in order to appeal to our readership.
We want to keep our readers engaged and invested in our newspaper, and we may not always do that job as well as we should.
That is why we love hearing from our readers. As a student run publication, sometimes it is hard to distinguish what we need to write about, what our readership wants us to write about and how to find that happy medium.
The world of journalism is in the spotlight right now due to President Trump’s views of fake news media, but that is not what our main focus should be on.
Our focus should be on reporting the truth, finding the stories that matter the most to our readers, keeping our university informed about what’s happening in the world all while having a positive attitude.
I promise we as, your student newspaper, will do our absolute best to better ourselves as a publication and to publish important news, environment and arts and entertainment stories.
We want to hear, represent and share your voices, the voices of UWSP, to paint the bigger picture of what being part of our campus entails.
At the end of the day, we are equals we are unified, we are UWSP.
The Pointer will continue to do our best to keep providing the best news we possibly can. Thank you, readers, for sticking with us on this journey as we continue to better our university and ourselves.
Lhea Owens
Arts and Entertainment Editor
lowen721@uwsp.edu
