GSPA Seminars

The first GSPA seminar I attended was a NewsMag Crash Course presented by Jessica Norton and Erin Hill. Right now I'm taking Magazine Management, so I wanted to see if this seminar would add anything to my understanding of that course or just breeze over the same material. A lot of what they said about page layout and and staff structure was similar to what we have been discussing in my magazine course, but this seminar when into a lot more detail about editorial content. They discussed new features that will catch readers eyes and where those headlines should be placed on the cover. They also emphasized the fact that recurring sections, like how-to columns, are what keep readers returning again and again. While my magazine course focuses more on editorial philosophies in the professional world, this seminar gave me more insight into brainstorming specific stories. It was also more applicable to my current state as a college journalism major, rather than offering theoretical information about professional careers.

The second seminar I attended was Journalism: It's writing, not rocket science taught by Meg Ferrante. At first this seminar seemed a little more juvenile, because we started out by filling out a grammar madlib of sorts and sharing our results. After this brain teaser, however, Ms. Ferrante provided a lot of insight into how to make even very factual writing more creative. She passed out a list of leads from award winning high school magazines, that were less than impressive. She showed us all how easy it was to improve these leads and hook readers right at the beginning. She also stressed that writers need to be on their a-game throughout a story, especially in longer feature stories. If a reader is going to stay hooked, the writing has to be just as cutting edged in the middle as it was in the opening sentence.