This past weekend, I, along with my fellow Roundup News colleagues, attended the JACC Spring 2014 State Conference in Burbank, California. The JACC holds a conference three times I year I believe. In the fall, there is the regional conference, where the news media of various community colleges meet somewhere within their respective regions, gather to compete, network, and attend workshops in order to gain a better knowledge of the field of journalism. During the spring, there is the state conference where all of the community colleges meet. The locations switch every year and this time around, it happened locally.
We always come into these conferences with high confidence. During the regional conference in the fall of last year, the Roundup News, the Bull Magazine, and its respective photographers and reporters, won many awards. During the awards ceremony, our name was called out in almost every category with either a top placing, or an honorable mention. It wasn't much different coming into the state conference as we felt our publications were good enough for a repeat performance. Sadly, it wasn't the case this time around.
Before I go on, congratulations to all the schools and student journalists that won an award at the state conference. It was well deserved. Having said that, I was really annoyed during the awards ceremony. Hearing every other school being called for an award bothered me. I like winning and I'm a very competitive person with great pride in my school's publications and in my colleagues. Every time our name wasn't called during the "mail-in" portion of the ceremony, one reoccurring thought went through my head. "Were we that bad?"
I received 3rd place for News Photo and I feel great that my photo won out against who knows how many hundred photos were entered in that category but initially I was disappointed. 3rd?! Really? I remember taking that photo, which was a photograph of a standoff between Pierce College and West Los Angeles College football players occurred at the football stadium when the away team had all their stuff stolen from the locker room and were angry. Sheriff deputies from Pierce College and Valley College (I believe) as well as LAPD arrived on scene and had to break it up before it escalated into a full blown riot which at the time, was nearing that point. When I took that photo I "knew" it was going to win at least second. It was a great photo and I was proud of it. Still am. How many times does an event like that happen at other colleges?
As the awards went on during the News Photo category, they showed the winning photo, which was taken by a Long Beach City College photographer, of a similar altercation during a football game and a punch was thrown. So actually a fight documented. I saw it and I thought "Wow. That's an awesome photo." Then I wondered what the 2nd place photo was and what made it better than mine? They never showed it.
After the conference was over, I, still bitter and disappointed, spoke with a colleague who was just as bitter and disappointed as I was, about the conference and our outing and we concluded that as good as we were back in the fall of last year, we rested on our laurels which affected our work. Don't get me wrong, we worked and still continue to work hard to make our newspaper the great publication that it is. Just not hard enough. At least, that's what I thought when we both talked about it.
When I woke up yesterday, I was still bothered as to why we didn't win that many awards during the state conference and continued to ponder the results. As I type this entry out, I just feel like we've lost our sight. Winning isn't everything. It's not the end all be all of journalism. What journalism is, is getting the news right and reporting as such. Speaking personally, these days I'm not as happy as I was before when I entered the newsroom because I was so focused on winning awards (as well as other factors but I won't talk about that but it does play a part in me wanting to win) that it stressed me out so much that I don't "smile like I used to," as another colleague of mine told me during the conference. And it's true. I don't. I'm not happy much these days and it sucks. It sucks that I know it, and it sucks that others recognize it and I hate that because I'm normally quite happy.
It dawned on me, as I recall the other school's being called out for awards, resulting in loud, boisterous cheers, that it was an amateur show. It's all been an amateur show. I don't think the professional publications out there cheered as hard for their award wins. It's great to win an award for your hard work but those that didn't win worked just as hard. Going about business in order to win is the wrong way to go about approaching journalism.
I don't care much about winning anymore. I want to get back to my old happy self again. Which is why I'm going to perform like I did when I first started this venture into journalism. Reporting the news right, and on time. My best work came about doing it this way AND it was fun. Should my work result in awards, great. It's a rather humbling experience to acknowledge where and how I went wrong. I'm glad that I was able to recognize it at all now rather than risk fully burning and falling out of what I loved about journalism. Here's to the new, old me. The future is looking a little more bright now.
We always come into these conferences with high confidence. During the regional conference in the fall of last year, the Roundup News, the Bull Magazine, and its respective photographers and reporters, won many awards. During the awards ceremony, our name was called out in almost every category with either a top placing, or an honorable mention. It wasn't much different coming into the state conference as we felt our publications were good enough for a repeat performance. Sadly, it wasn't the case this time around.
Before I go on, congratulations to all the schools and student journalists that won an award at the state conference. It was well deserved. Having said that, I was really annoyed during the awards ceremony. Hearing every other school being called for an award bothered me. I like winning and I'm a very competitive person with great pride in my school's publications and in my colleagues. Every time our name wasn't called during the "mail-in" portion of the ceremony, one reoccurring thought went through my head. "Were we that bad?"
I received 3rd place for News Photo and I feel great that my photo won out against who knows how many hundred photos were entered in that category but initially I was disappointed. 3rd?! Really? I remember taking that photo, which was a photograph of a standoff between Pierce College and West Los Angeles College football players occurred at the football stadium when the away team had all their stuff stolen from the locker room and were angry. Sheriff deputies from Pierce College and Valley College (I believe) as well as LAPD arrived on scene and had to break it up before it escalated into a full blown riot which at the time, was nearing that point. When I took that photo I "knew" it was going to win at least second. It was a great photo and I was proud of it. Still am. How many times does an event like that happen at other colleges?
As the awards went on during the News Photo category, they showed the winning photo, which was taken by a Long Beach City College photographer, of a similar altercation during a football game and a punch was thrown. So actually a fight documented. I saw it and I thought "Wow. That's an awesome photo." Then I wondered what the 2nd place photo was and what made it better than mine? They never showed it.
After the conference was over, I, still bitter and disappointed, spoke with a colleague who was just as bitter and disappointed as I was, about the conference and our outing and we concluded that as good as we were back in the fall of last year, we rested on our laurels which affected our work. Don't get me wrong, we worked and still continue to work hard to make our newspaper the great publication that it is. Just not hard enough. At least, that's what I thought when we both talked about it.
When I woke up yesterday, I was still bothered as to why we didn't win that many awards during the state conference and continued to ponder the results. As I type this entry out, I just feel like we've lost our sight. Winning isn't everything. It's not the end all be all of journalism. What journalism is, is getting the news right and reporting as such. Speaking personally, these days I'm not as happy as I was before when I entered the newsroom because I was so focused on winning awards (as well as other factors but I won't talk about that but it does play a part in me wanting to win) that it stressed me out so much that I don't "smile like I used to," as another colleague of mine told me during the conference. And it's true. I don't. I'm not happy much these days and it sucks. It sucks that I know it, and it sucks that others recognize it and I hate that because I'm normally quite happy.
It dawned on me, as I recall the other school's being called out for awards, resulting in loud, boisterous cheers, that it was an amateur show. It's all been an amateur show. I don't think the professional publications out there cheered as hard for their award wins. It's great to win an award for your hard work but those that didn't win worked just as hard. Going about business in order to win is the wrong way to go about approaching journalism.
I don't care much about winning anymore. I want to get back to my old happy self again. Which is why I'm going to perform like I did when I first started this venture into journalism. Reporting the news right, and on time. My best work came about doing it this way AND it was fun. Should my work result in awards, great. It's a rather humbling experience to acknowledge where and how I went wrong. I'm glad that I was able to recognize it at all now rather than risk fully burning and falling out of what I loved about journalism. Here's to the new, old me. The future is looking a little more bright now.