Understanding Media Coverage

- By Yesenia Anorve-Basoria, Contributing Writer -

Students with media interest attended the 2018 College Media Conference that was held at Withers Hall at North Carolina State University on Feb. 24 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

The students started their day with an opening panel discussion, followed by multiple breakout sessions relating to theme of that year. This year, the theme revolved around artists’ battle for local coverage. Panelists Charles Phaneuf from Raleigh Little Theater, Mary Kay Kennedy from Artspace, and Justin Laidlaw from Runaway spoke about their individual experience.

“Traditional news outlets like newspapers have gotten rid of their art columnist,” said Kennedy when discussing how her company has had to switch their coverage from newspapers to other media.

All of the panelists could agree that one of their most important themes to uphold is  “[that] every show is an issue which creates a dialogue within the community,” as said by Laidlaw. The dialogue among the community serves the company as another way of the media.

Some of breakout sessions that students were involved in included Media Law Update, Feature Writing: Telling a Compelling Story, Best Practices: News, Storytelling Through Images, and We Can All Do Better: Encouraging Diversity and Inclusivity in your Newsroom.

For more information about the past College Media Conference(s) and future ones, please go to http://nccma.unc.edu/conference/