JSPA heads to New York City as part of CSPA’s 2023 spring journalism convention

UPDATED JAN. 1, 2023

The Jewish Scholastic Press Association will meet in New York City this year as part of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s 99th Spring Scholastic Convention, set for March 15-17 at Columbia University in New York, and followed by JSPA-only programing on Shabbat in synagogues on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

It will be JSPA’s first in-person program since its Los Angeles conference and Shabbaton in 2019. The CSPA partnership was first planned for March of 2020, then canceled at the last minute because of the Covid pandemic.

JSPA is honored to be partnering with CSPA, a 98-year-old organization that gathers more than 2,500 students and their advisers to learn from leading journalism educators as well as reporters, designers, multimedia producers, free speech attorneys and ethicists from top publications in print, radio, television and online.

As part of the larger convention, JSPA will host a set of workshops scheduled throughout the day on Thursday, March 16, all of them open to everyone attending CSPA.  All of JSPA’s topics — including Torah insights into journalism, how to cover Israel, Jewish issues, antisemitism and other forms of hate, how to localize world and national news, and how and why to cover religion in high school media — will be included in the regular CSPA conference registration.

More information is available on CSPA’s website. CSPA offers many workshop choices each hour Wednesday through Friday, in areas ranging from reporting, interviewing, editing, advising and legal issues to video, podcast, online, photo and yearbook production. Registration for CSPA will be through CSPA’s website.  Early-bird registration is $169 per person, payable by Feh. 24; after that date, the price rises to $179.

We’ve been asked to let you know that Columbia University requires all conference attendees to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19. More information about this policy can be found on the university website.

CSPA’s convention ends with an awards assembly on Friday afternoon, and JSPA will then host a Friday night Shabbat dinner with featured speaker and Shabbat luncheon on Saturday, during which we will explore a real-life journalism dilemma through the lens of Jewish thought. The Saturday discussion has been a highlight of our annual conference in Los Angeles and a tradition we are proud to continue in New York.

Attendees will pay a separate $50 registration ($25 for students at JSPA member schools) for Shabbat programming through this website.  Registration and payment, which include Shabbat dinner and luncheon, will be through this website and posted in early January 2023.

We are thrilled to belatedly open this new chapter in our work with Jewish high schools, Jewish students and all who are interested in what Judaism has to say about reporting the news. Our partnership with CSPA will offer students a broad range of educational opportunities, while still providing them with both a rich exploration of Judaism’s perspective and tools to cover critical issues pertaining to the Jewish world.

JSPA aims to help students become educated, top-flight journalists who can become leaders of college and professional publications while employing Jewish values as stated in its motto, from Leviticus 19:16: “Do not go about as a talebearer among your people; do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor. I am the Lord.” Those words can create a framework for making decisions that arise in newsrooms every day, teaching students to use both courage and restraint, when to use which, and how to channel curiosity into purpose.

Click here for more information about JSPA. For questions about our 2023 conference or any other aspect of our work, please e-mail JSPA Associate Director Zev Hurwitz at [email protected].