JSPA Conference

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

2022 Jewish Scholastic Journalism Conference, March 15, 2022

March 9, 2022

Here is the schedule and workshop list for the 2022 Jewish Scholastic Journalism Conference, scheduled for Tuesday, March 15, 2022, live via Zoom. More than 100 students had signed up for the conference as of March 9. For further information or last-minute registration, please email Zev Hurwitz at [email protected].

NOTE: ALL TIMES PACIFIC

9:30 – 10 a.m. Welcome

Student meeting and greeting, and a word on Leviticus 19:16

10 – 10:50 a.m. Workshop Block A

(1 p.m. Eastern Time)

Journalism as a Religious Process
Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky, B’nai David Judea Congregation, Los Angeles

The Torah is meant to guide us in every aspect of life, and modern journalism is no exception. Using uncannily relevant verses from throughout Tanach, learn how to make the toughest newsroom decisions with Judaism in mind, while also developing habits that will teach you to practice journalism at the highest moral level.

Out in the World
Leila Miller, Mexico City correspondent for The Los Angeles Times

What’s it like to be a foreign correspondent? How do you know what stories to cover when everything is unfamiliar, not just to you but to most of your readers? And how do you know where to start finding sources and phone numbers? Shalhevet alumna Leila Miller is a new foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, fulfilling a long-held dream to cover Latin America. Her beat is the Western Hemisphere from Mexico to the bottom of South America. Learn about her day-to-day life as a foreign correspondent, and the path she took to get there. Leila will be interviewed by Boiling Point Features Editor Keira Beller and take questions from students.

Jews in sports? That’s still a story?

Louis Keene, Staff Reporter, The Forward

The stereotype that Jews can’t play sports was debunked long before Yeshiva University’s men’s basketball team won 50 games in a row. But covering Jews and sports isn’t just writing about which Jews play what sports. In this session, you’ll learn how to find new angles to old stories in this popular category, and how to craft questions for some challenging interview subjects.

Beyond the Question List: Advanced Interview Technique for News and Features

Joelle Keene MJE, Adviser to Shalhevet High School’s The Boiling Point and JSPA Founder

From where to sit to how to handle requests for anonymity, learn practical tools that will take you deeper into your subjects than you thought possible while getting the basic facts you need to turn in a story that’s accurate, contextualized and complete.

Principles of Design

Jessica Nassau, Adviser to CESJDS The Lion’s Tale

No matter what section you’re designing, there are certain fundamentals of design that you need to follow. From fonts to headlines, dominance to harmony, this session will cover all the basics of page layout.

Photojournalism for Your School Publications

Jen Bladen MJE, Adviser to Vox Populi and Spectrum, Harvard-Westlake School

We’ll start by reviewing images and brainstorming techniques used by photographers communicating news through photographs. We’ll look at techniques used by photojournalists to capture viewers’ attention, and then practice identifying those techniques in images. Time permitting, you’ll use your smartphone cameras to practice a variety of photojournalism techniques and ultimately compose four photographs to help communicate stories of everyday life in your community.

11 – 11:50 a.m. Workshop Block B

(2 p.m. Eastern Time)

Jewish at the Wall Street Journal

Gregory Zuckerman, Special Writer, The Wall Street Journal

What’s it like to be an observant journalist in the secular journalism world? Gregory Zuckerman, WSJ special writer, three-time Loeb Award winner and best-selling author of suspense-filled books on the economy, will share adventures in observance along with how he finds — and makes — business writing as exciting as fiction.

News That’s Jewish

Rob Eshman, National Editor of The Forward

It’s hard to define “Jewish news,” but Rob Eshman, National Editor of the country’s oldest and largest Jewish news source, spends every day doing just that, shaping what Americans know about Jews, Judaism, and Jewish life and culture. Mr. Eshman will share his process as he shepherds stories that highlight trends, bring unexpected criminals to justice, advance social causes, challenge readers to think differently about things they thought they understood and generally create a nationwide chevre of informed readers.

The World in High School Media: How to Localize National and Global News

Joelle Keene MJE, Adviser to Shalhevet High School’s The Boiling Point and JSPA Founder

With national and world events roiling the world in places your readers may know little about, it’s especially useful to have things explained in stories written specifically for them. From breaking news like the invasion of Ukraine to more persistent issues like climate change, social divisions and the economy, learn how to expand your definition of ‘local” so you can report these stories without repeating what others have said, and make “outside news” some of your most important and widely read journalism.

The Big Picture: Designing a Cover or Double-truck

Jessica Nassau, Adviser to CESJDS The Lion’s Tale

There are some sections of your paper where you really want to make an impact. In this session, we’ll talk about how to come up with simple but clever visual metaphors that intrigue your readers — and pull them into your stories.

Navigating the New Media World

Julia Gergely, Staff Reporter, New York Jewish Week

We’re all reading it, watching it and becoming informed whether it’s reliable or not, but how does new media work from the inside? From stringers to staffers, blogging to newsletters, startups to rapacious media aggregators and big-media behemoths gobbling up small companies, we’ll explore what’s what, how it operates and how to get started writing news that matters for readers who care.

Editors’ Roundtable

How’s it going in your newsroom? What’s your biggest success so far, and what’s your biggest challenge? Swap stories and advice with editors of some of the other 10 schools attending our conference this year. Share your wisdom and leave with theirs!