The Yellow Jacket newspaper at Waynesburg University has proven year in and out that it is one of the best student-run papers in the state, and several Yellow Jacket editors went to Baltimore, Maryland, in hopes to make it even better. 

Seniors Mattie Winowitch, Teghan Simonton, Luke Goodling, and junior Grace Hutchinson attended the Society of Professional Journalists Excellence in Journalism conference, which ran from Sept. 27 to Sept. 29. 

The Department of Communication Chairperson Richard Krause said that the conference gave students a chance to have their skills enhanced on a professional level. 

“I am very pleased that they are pursuing professional development opportunities like attending an SPJ conference,” Krause said.“I’m just very excited about these opportunities for the students.” 

The four attendees, are members of both The Yellow Jacket and the SPJ chapter of Waynesburg University, participated in several workshops at the conference that touched on the top issues in journalism today. 

Simonton, president of Waynesburg’s SPJ chapter, said that the issue of fake news and focusing on how to make a more digital newsroom were some of the topics at the conference. 

“Basically, a lot of the programming revolves around sessions where there’s panelists and speakers and the talk about hot button issues in the industry today,” Simonton said.. 

Simonton, a double-major in journalism and public relations,is also the region editor of The Yellow Jacket newspaper. 

Krause also praised the value of students attending the conference. 

“This conference is going to allow them to take their work in a whole new direction, and I think that will continue to allow us to be the kind of paper we want to be,” Krause said. 

Although Goodling is heavily involved as both SPJ’s secretary and the sports editor for The Yellow Jacket, his official major is sports broadcasting and sports information, unlike Simonton and Winowitch, who both major in journalism, or Hutchison, who is an advertising major. Goodling said that the conference taught useful lessons on the broadcast side of communication in addition to journalism. 

“There was a wide variety of things that we covered from a journalism and broadcast standpoint,” Goodling said. 

In addition to the seminars and workshops, there was also a job expo event where attendees can network with possible employers. 

Simonton said that the job expo was eye-opening as to how many options students like her will have after college. 

“Going to these national conferences is a really great way to see that there’s so many more job opportunities out there,” Simonton said. 

Even though these students have been involved with journalism at Waynesburg and beyond for several years, there are still things to learn at the SPJ conference. 

“It gave me a greater sense overall of where journalism and broadcasting and all of these things are in relation to the current media,” Goodling said. 

This was the second consecutive year that the Department of Communications has sent students to the SPJ conference, and Krause expects Waynesburg to be involved in conferences like these in the future. 

“We are going to continue to make those opportunities available for our students,” Krause said. “We’d like to get them out there and we want to be very visible off campus.”