On Tuesday Oct. 1, the Prospector and yearbook staff got on a bus at 6:30am to go to J-day. The group went to the CU Boulder campus to explore the campus and learn about journalism.
The purpose of J-Day is to gather as many newspaper, yearbook and other publication staff together once a year to learn and celebrate the work from the previous year and get awards.
Makenzi VerVaecke, a senior at MSHS and the Prospector’s editor-in-chief, believes that J-day is useful to help bond the two classes. “It’s good to strengthen all of our staff together and build a better community, as well as all of us being able to learn skills and see what a journalism career would look like at different high schools and outside of school,” VerVaecke said.
The best part of J-Day according to Naomi Porter, a junior at MSHS, and the Prospector’s engagement manager is bonding with friends and learning new things. “My favorite part of J-Day this year was being with the people that I enjoy being around, learning things and also learning more about people who professionally do this,” Porter said.
Porter believes that J-Day helps the Prospector staff become better writers and overall better journalists by talking to the professionals.
Cordelia Portman, a junior from MSHS, and the Prospector’s copy editor, likes that they bring in real world journalists. “They bring in speakers from all over the country,” Portman said. “You get to hear from people who have been in the industry for a long time, rather than just people who are educated on it and don’t have real world experience.”
Portman also learned something new about the journalist career. “You can be in front of the camera and broadcasting and on air, and I had never thought about that before. I had always only considered journalism as writing,” Portman said.
Portman likes the idea that you can be a journalist, but that you don’t have to be the same as the
next journalist. “We all come from different places, and you don’t have to take the strict four year college path, you don’t have to be an amazing charismatic person,” Portman said. “There are so many different positions and ways to get better at those things that don’t always involve very strictly following the path of someone else.”
Amanda Kerrigan, the Prospector’s advisor, thinks that it is important that the staff knows how many other students are doing the same thing that they are. “We’re not in isolation,” Kerrigan said.
Kerrigan’s goal is to someday work up to getting on the CSMA Hall of Fame, which is the highest award a high school or middle school can get and a huge honor. “One of my goals is to get us back to getting at least six to eight breaking news stories this year, so we can get back to our All Colorado status,” Kerrigan said.
