Charlie Martinez
Editor-in-chief

“TV cannot show it like we can show it. Radio cannot sing it like we can sing it,” said Bill Plaschke, one of the keynote speakers at the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) Conference this last weekend.
Plaschke has been named sports columnist of the year and is well known for his work with ‘Around the Horn’ on ESPN. “We (newspapers) aren’t dying – we’re coming back,” Plaschke said.
The ACP conference is held every spring, summer and fall for students who are pursuing journalism and media relations. It targets students who work for print media at their schools.
Every college or university newspaper or magazine is invited to be a member of the ACP but must pay membership dues. Any college that wants to send delegates to the conference must pay registration fees.
This year Mesa State sent six delegates from the Criterion to the conference in Hollywood, Calif. to learn valuable skills in the field of print journalism and media relations.
Mesa State was represented by sophomores Delaney Juliet, Matt Meyer, Anthony Himes, junior Asa Fix, and seniors Jonathan Thomas and Charlie Martinez. All delegates work for the Criterion and are mass communication majors.

Delany Juliet, a MSC Student studying Mass Communications takes notes at the convention in Hollywood.

The conference enabled students to submit one issue of the paper and the website for The Best of Show awards, as well as allowing for students to receive personalized critiques of their publications. Workshops led by professors and professionals from around the country helped students in specific areas such as tips on selling ads, the value of a student handbook, how to cover controversial news, trends in newspaper design, and how to land a great internship/job.
“The session called ‘Recruit, Retain, Revive!’ was one of my favorites,” Meyer said. The speaker was Toni Albertson, a professor at Mt. San Antonio College. “She talked about marketing to all classes and majors and getting students excited about working for the paper.”
Other sessions and workshops offered information about how to increase online web traffic. Chris Lesinski, the founder of Tosh.O website, works on TMZ’s digital media. He spoke about utilizing other blogs to trade links to drive more people to the newspaper site.
He said the key to any successful website is to upload content daily. “It seems like the trend for a lot of the papers here is to post news online daily, and then print a paper weekly,” Himes said. “This is something we’d really like to start doing, we just have to change the structure of our staff up a bit and ask writers to meet shorter deadlines.”
Besides the journalistic skills, tips and ideas that were presented to the delegates, several speakers inspired the delegates from the Criterion.
“Bill Plaschke was my favorite,” Fix said. “He talked about how you don’t have to come from a big town to succeed as a journalist. He also talked about how it’s all about the words and newspapers and print media are still thriving.”
The Criterion staff members learned valuable communication tools. They plan to make some important changes at the paper. Juliet is a member of the ad sales team at the Criterion. “I think it’s important to learn how to make media kits and approach other businesses repeatedly for ads.” Juliet said. “We need to work on created a more aggressive ad sales team.”
The conference was a way to kick start and encourage all of the journalists that were present. The message being told was that there are still students pursuing a career in what many people are calling a ‘dying field.’ Keynote speaker Plashke said, “If ink is on your hands it gets in your head and it stays in your heart.”

cmartine@mesastate.edu