ICC Student-Led News Organization Recognized for Excellence Across the State
Stephanie McClaskey
April 17, 2023
Harbinger Student Media (HSM), Illinois Central College‘s (ICC) student-led news organization, was recognized for excellence at the semi-annual Illinois Community College Journalism Association (ICCJA) conference. The conference took place late last week at the College of DuPage (COD) in Glen Ellyn, Ill. The ICCJA conference includes a series of workshops, keynote speakers, open discussions with experts in a variety of disciplines and an awards ceremony to recognize students’ success within community college news organizations across the state.
“This conference is a great opportunity for our students to interact with other student journalists as well as with professionals in the field,” said Debbie Hedemann, Media Manager of HSM.
The ICCJA conference kicked off its workshops with a Q&A with James Fuller. Fuller is a Political Reporter and the Advisor to COD’s student news organization, The Courier. This workshop offered students an opportunity to ask questions about journalism and learn more about his journey into journalism, as well as, tips for being successful and finding employment as a journalist. Advisors were also offered the opportunity to learn new ways to expand the news organizations at their schools, during this session.
The next workshop was led by Dann Gire, Founding Director of Film Critics Association, titled How to be a meaningful and effective critic. Gire’s session included a presentation about what it is to be a critic, key points to consider when providing a critical review and a small clip of Hitchcock’s Psycho. The video clip transitioned the lecture into an interactive experience for the student in attendance.
These two workshops were followed by a dinner that featured keynote speakers Christy Gutowski and Stacy St. Clair, journalists with Chicago Tribune. Gutowski and St. Clair were the investigating reporters on The Tylenol Murders-A Chicago Tribune Investigation. Which covered the recent anniversary of an unsolved case that shook the Chicago area in 1982. An unknown emptied Tylenol capsules and replaced the pharmaceuticals with Cyanide, leaving seven dead within a matter of days. The case remains unsolved but new DNA technology is in the process of offering potential advancement toward closure.
The first workshop on the second day of the conference discussed podcasting, led by Dennis Tracy, Media Lab Assistant at COD. This presentation offered new skills, ideas of how to make a podcast that stands out above others, technical skills to consider and an open floor opportunity that allowed students and advisors to ask questions. Podcasting allows journalists the opportunity to get their content out to a broader audience and expand their skills within the field of journalism.
The final workshop of the ICCJA conference was led by Fuller and discussed how to effectively build a student newspaper email newsletter. It also went into detail about how to track the high-traffic content selected by readers of the newsletter. Organizations can trace who is opening the newsletter and how many people are subscribing or opting out of receiving the newsletter. Fuller also discussed a few different ways to provide fun options in the newsletter also such as puzzles and doodling areas. The COD also uses this platform as a way to provide its audience with the chance to let their voice be heard by providing surveys on various topics. This is also a helpful tool when trying to generate new advertisement revenue and allow viewers a chance to donate to the Courier.
To close out the conference, an award ceremony took place. The ICCJA offers a competition for community college students to submit their work for judgment by a board of independent judges. These submissions fall into different divisions based on the size of the different schools. A few disciplines that are reviewed include graphic design, feature stories, news stories, sports photography, news photography, headlines, podcasting and website design. Most of the categories have honorable mention, third place, second place and first place awards offered. HSM was awarded six recognitions during this time.
“I am so proud of the efforts of our students. It’s always great for them to be acknowledged for their hard work,” Hedemann said.
Among the awards received were First Place in Podcasting for the second consecutive year to Stephanie McClaskey, Third Place in Sports Photo to Noah Markunas, Honorable Mention for Sports Photo to Noah Markunas, Honorable Mention in Feature Photo to Noah Markunas, Honorable Mention in Headline to Bryce Bresnahan and Honorable Mention in Sports Game Story to Alba Vigo.