If you don't know what "YBKSTL" stands for, it is "Yearbook-St. Louis." For the past three days I went to journalism camp with the newspaper and yearbook staff of my school. It was mainly for yearbook students but Herff Jones (the company that helps create and assist the students creating the yearbook, and also who put on the camp) had a great newspaper speaker.
There were only eight people in the "newspaper" section of the camp. We do have 14 on staff but only four of us went. The biggest thing I learned was how to use InDesign. It's basically a software that the newspaper uses to design their pages of the paper. It's becoming bigger and bigger in our publication because we are now a "newsmagazine" instead of just a solid "newspaper". This means we incorporate more design elements than just your stereotypical cut and dry paper.
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A lot of people at my school don't read the newspaper and I think it's a shame. One week a month the newspaper staff stays after school until 5-6 at night, and on layout night, Thursday, they stay as late as 10:30. Newspapers are distributed one day and end up in the trash can the next day. I don't think anyone recognizes just how much time goes into writing, interviewing, and designing the pages for the paper. This also goes with the yearbook. Right when people receive their yearbooks they quickly point out the mistakes. What about all of the hundreds of hours that were put in and all the elements that were right?
If I got one thing from camp (besides learning InDesign), it was inspiration. The passion all the yearbook/newspaper speakers had for their jobs was inspiring. These adviser's shared so much of their knowledge to help us improve. Being at camp showed me how passionate people can be about publications and I love it.
Until next time,
Taylor xx
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