Student paper wins record 20 awards at Norcal journalism conference

By Bonnie Oviatt

The Laney Tower earned 20 awards at the Oct. 21 NorCal Journalism Association of Community College (JACC) Fall 2017 conference.

The Tower’s record number of awards was for both work done over the past academic year and on-the-spot competitions.

The conference competitions tested skills in photography, writing, editing and cartoon drawing.

Awards were given for several categories of design, photos, news, feature and opinion writing.

The conference, held at De Anza College in Cupertino, offered a wide variety of seminars and competitions and provided participants an opportunity to network and compare their work to that of other Northern California community colleges.

Pulitzer Prize winners, lawyers, professors and students gave presentations on a wide variety of topics.

The keynote speaker, Robert Trapp, publisher of the Rio Grande Sun of Espanola, New Mexico, gave a talk especially relevant to community college students about how local papers can really influence what is going on in their community.

The Sun is recognized for its hard-hitting watchdog reporting and was the subject of an award winning 2012 documentary, “The Sun Never Sets.”

Seven students, along with faculty and staff, attended the conference.

“It was an honor to learn from a photographer who had been on the front lines documenting in places like Vietnam and the Philippines,” said Laney College journalism student Toni Cervantes.

“The most useful part for me was the seminar on information gathering and legal rights,” said Laney Tower News Editor Brian Howey.

The staff of the Santa Rosa Junior College newspaper, the Oak Leaf, gave a panel presentation on what is was like to report on the wild fires affecting their own communities.

The JACC holds a regional conference in the fall semester and a statewide conference is in the spring. The staff of the Laney Tower is looking forward to the next conference.

“I really enjoyed the conference and am looking forward to the next one,” said Laney Tower Editor-in-Chief Sarah Carpenter. “We learn so much just from meeting students in journalism at other colleges.”

Bonnie Oviatt is a Tower Staff Writer. Email her at btower(at)yahoo.com.