From November 10th to November 13th, students from Phoenix Military Academy visited Indianapolis for the JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention. They involved themselves in competitions and attended seminars that enhanced their journalism skills.

All of the thirty students who attended were either a part of the journalism team or were hand selected by Ms. Comeford, Phoenix’s journalism adviser. There was a significant cost for the trip in which many of the thirty students were able to void.

“I am an editor for the yearbook which basically solidified my spot for attending the trip. Also, I did not have to cover the cost of attendance because I was given the opportunity to apply to a scholarship that paid all expenses on my behalf. All I had to do was submit information about myself and write a response as to why I wanted to attend the convention,” said Senior Coraima Sanchez.

Having the cost of attendance of the trip covered, Coraima and the rest of the editors solely focused on how they were going to highly compete and prevail over 4,000 other high school students from across the nation, as well as some parts of the world, who participated in the convention.

“My specialty in journalism is photography. Therefore, I was placed to compete in a photo portfolio contest. I had to submit a maximum of eight pictures for the judges to grade and critique,” said Sanchez.

Although no awards were won, Coraima had a very valuable experience overall.

“Because I attended the convention, I realized that I need to learn how to separate the personal art I create from standard journalism techniques. Journalism is news, and the last thing I want to do is show an artsy depiction of the world rather than what’s actually occurring,” said Sanchez.

Senior Diana Aguilar is another individual who is an editor on PMA’s journalism team. She participated in the Yearbook Copy and Captions competition for a section on clubs and extracurricular activities.

“I wasn’t an award recipient for the competition I was in. However, I probably could have been one if the angle of the article and the caption I wrote was more creative. I felt as if many of the competitors had the same train of thought on how to develop captions based off of the spread of photos we were given,” said Aguilar.

Diana’s experience at the JEA/NSPA Convention was also meaningful and semantic to her as well.

“I went to a seminar about journalism critics. From attending this seminar, I learned tips on how people should approach critics rather than being overly defensive. I also learned how to understand the viewpoint of critics, but at the same time defend my perspective when I write and my purpose for publishing what I create,” said Aguilar.