The Hudsonian ranks 9th in the country

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: Steven Lindsay

Staff Writer

The Hudsonian secured ninth place in the National College Media Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, on Oct. 28.

The ACP/CMA convention was held in Louisville from Wednesday to Sunday.The Hudsonian entered the ACP’s Best of Show contest in the “Newspaper: Two-Year School” category, and placed ninth out of 52 other candidates.

“It was the best paper my e-board has put together this semester… It wasn’t perfect but I was proud,” said Zoe Deno, Editor-in-Chief of the Hudsonian.

Nicole Scipione, web editor, said it didn’t matter where they placed, as long as they worked hard and tried their best.

“I was very happy to hear that [we placed] and to know that our hard work is being recognized,” Scipione said. “The experience leading up to the competition was stressful because we were putting together an issue that’s twice as long as usual so we all had to kick it into high gear,” she said. “But we stayed positive and helped each other through the process.”

Asan Anarkulov, a staff photographer, was happy they were able to reach a high standing with mostly new members to the paper.

“We only have two returning staff members from last year and the rest of us are beginners. That says a great deal about the effort each of us demonstrated to place top 10 out of [over] 50,” he said.

Deno said the paper had to be built from the ground up, but that didn’t hold them back.

“Every week we work to be better than the week before,” she said. “We aren’t going to stop improving either.”

Copy editor, Hailey McLaughlin, however wasn’t surprised.

“Everyone worked hard and put in late hours and I was really pleased with the outcome,” she said. “We looked at every little detail and made sure we put out the best paper we could possibly show off.”

Attending the conference in Louisville gave members the chance to learn from around 300 educational sessions held. There were many options ranging from photojournalism skills, to how to enter the magazine field.

Anarkulov was one of the members who went to Louisville. “The overall experience was superb,” he said. “[I] got a stronger understanding about photojournalism, tried amazing food, networked with interesting individuals from other states and more importantly became friends with everyone from the Hudsonian.”

“I don’t think the paper would be as good as it was today if we didn’t have those CMA conferences,” said Rachel Bornn, the Hudsonian advisor. “It’s just a great way to train our staff,” she said. “It’s also really great team building for the staff,” she said. “The Hudsonian is a real family that way.”

“I’ve been a member of CMA for 10 years now, and that organization has helped so much in answering a whole host of questions that come up when you run college media,” Bornn said.

With students and advisors coming together from around the country, students were able to meet new people with different thoughts about journalism and putting together a newspaper.

“At the conference there is this huge table of newspapers brought by the conferences so that student journalists can get inspiration from each other’s works,” Deno said. “I went to the table at one point or another and I remember looking through the papers for ideas and realizing how unique our paper is in design and layout.”

Anarkulov was able to meet a former photographer for the United Nations who was taking a break from his work and teaching. They have since kept in contact and talk about their shared interest in photography.

Elijah DeVivo, a staff writer, attended a workshop on creative writing and meet a guest speaker who covers news for MSNBC. This workshop leader covered the royal wedding last year and every Olympic Games since 2000.

Although all members weren’t able to attend the trip to Kentucky, every member of the newspaper contributed something.

“I think this reflects that the Hudsonian is a hardworking group of people that want to put out a great paper,” Scipione said. “No one is perfect and we’re all still learning, but we give each issue our best because we want to do well and represent our campus community.”

After coming home from the trip, all members are feeling optimistic about what’s to come.

“It makes me feel like the paper is just going to get better in the future because we’ve learned so much more at the CMA conference and have seen so many different types of papers that we can learn from,” Jie Weng, staff photographer, said.

Jaimie Albright, business manager, encourages anyone interested or curious to come to the meetings on Monday at 2 p.m. in ADM 107.

“The more people, the better we can be,” Albright said.