The Virginia Press Association conference always features workshops geared toward different aspects of print journalism, and typically big-name journalists take part in special sessions. But there's also an afternoon session in which winners in various disciplines discuss their work in a panel discussion.
The head of the VPA awards committee had called me several weeks ago, asking me to be one of three panelists in the sportswriting workshop. There was to be a daily sportswriter, a twice-weekly sportswriter, and me representing weeklies. I was told to prepare 10-15 minutes worth of talk about my three winning sports feature stories.
In preparation for that, I prepared a handout with all three stories and the photos that ran with them. The handout had footnotes pertaining to things I wanted to emphasize, and of course, I'd written my own notes.
Saturday morning I went down to pick up the schedule and see where my workshop room was. To my surprise, I found that I was the only sportswriter scheduled (along with a moderator, Michael Stowe from the Roanoke Times) for the session. Needless to say, I was a bit overwhelmed--though not panicked--at that point.
After a lunch with some colleagues, I headed back to the room to expand my notes to include the stories in which I was also in the running for awards (sports events and sports news).
Thankfully, everything went well. These workshops are never highly attended, even though I know you can pick up helpful ideas at them. There were about 15 people in the workshop, although many of the attendees were my coworkers.
The moderator helped things flow, directing the discussion to various sports writing topics. Among the ideas we discussed were
Thanks to Mr. Stowe and one main attendee, we managed to use up a whole hour in the workshop. For my efforts, I was surprised to get a little gift bag from the VPA people. My nametag throughout the conference also had an extra blue ribbon declaring that I was a panelist. Kind of fun for my debut at VPA. And no, I don't expect the same every year.
That workshop was the only one I attended, but I would have been interested in a few others if they didn't cost extra money or if I hadn't been preparing for mine. Just before my workshop was one entitled "Political Reporting in an Era of Blogs and Hyperpartisanship." Panelists included Mike Allen (White House correspondent for The Washington Post), Don Wycliff (public editor at the Chicago Tribune), and Matthew Yglesias (staff writer for The American Prospect).
Saturday morning, Allen was also the featured speaker at a breakfast session. When Bush made his secret Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, Allen was one of the few on Air Force One.
Posted by JRC at March 7, 2005 12:29 PM | TrackBack