Journalism students earn awards

Moorpark College students earned eight awards at the Journalism Association for Community Colleges (JACC) conference in Los Angeles last month.

"JACC awards always look good on a resume. It shows a prospective employer that this candidate has been recognized as among the top students in his field," said Joanna Miller, journalism adviser.

About 700 students from 45 California community colleges participated in the event.

Twenty local students, representing the Student Voice, which covers all three colleges in the Ventura County Community College District, competed in various on-the-spot and mail-in contests.

Jeremy Zeller and Eric Lee of Moorpark and Jesus Ornelas of Camarillo won an award in the team feature competition encompassing multimedia stories that were created on the spot.

"Moorpark College students were excited about this from the start as a chance to showcase their multimedia skills," Miller said.

The local students won one of eight top awards in the multimedia competition, which was a new event at JACC this year.

The team took their cameras and computer to Olvera Street in Los Angeles to capture the story. With the help of fellow students Renee Villasenor and Sean Greene, they spent the night combining images and sounds from the location with their scripted voice-over to produce a finished product, Miller said.

"The piece is a poignant and colorful portrait on how the Mexican culture is preserved on Olvera Street," the teacher said.

"It was a cool assignment," said Zeller, the editor in chief of the Student Voice. Zeller worked as an intern at the Acorn newspaper when he was in high school.

On location, the college team interviewed shop owners, musicians and others who spend their time on Olvera Street in order to learn about the traditions of the area.

"The street is different from other surrounding areas because they've preserved the Mexican culture there," Zeller said.

The 2006 Newbury Park High School graduate said he plans to transfer to a four-year university to major in multimedia journalism.

"He's done a fantastic job in leading the newsroom on its new path toward a Webcentric operation that focuses first on online, then compiles the best for the print edition," Miller said.

"The trend is not growing toward picking up the newspaper anymore; people want to watch and hear the sounds," Zeller said.

Journalists still need to write the script and prepare storyboards, but it's a different way of telling the story, he said.

Educators are also working to keep up with those trends, said Miller, who won this year's JACC 2008 Adviser of the Year award. In addition to knowing how to report and write a fair, interesting and accurate story, today's journalists must also know how to shoot and capture the story with audio, video and still photography to fashion it into a story told with pictures and sound.

"It's an exciting time in journalism education because it requires collaboration with other disciplines to give our students the best grounding in the field," Miller said.

Journalists still need curiosity and the ability to think, evaluate and analyze quickly. "And they need to know how to tell a good story. All of that has not changed," Miller said. New opportunities both allow and compel young people who plan to enter the profession to be able to tell those stories on multiple platforms.

Robbie Eich, who graduated from Moorpark High School in 2006, won first place in the editorial cartooning mail-in contest. His work is published in the Moorpark Acorn, the Student Voice and Ventura County Star's Yournews.com.

Eich said he's had a passion for drawing since he was a little boy.

"My imagination has always been what has carried me through my work, and I enjoy putting these ideas onto paper," he said.

The Moorpark resident hopes to work for a large newspaper and to become syndicated to reach a wider audience.

"It's my goal to do this in addition to being a professional artist in the entertainment industry," Eich said.

Although he enjoys holding a newspaper in his hands, Eich said, he also likes the Internet because it provides uptotheminute news from every corner of the globe.

"In my opinion, I hope that news stories continue to be published in print as opposed to being orated. I feel that it is more stimulating to read and comprehend as opposed to being lectured at," he said.

"Eich is prolific and conscientious and extremely willing to illustrate whatever point an editor needs," said Miller. He's also a good reporter, she added.

Moorpark College President Eva Conrad received the First Amendment Award for her support of journalism at Moorpark.

"I am proud of the work done by the students and faculty in Moorpark College's journalism program," Conrad said.

Writing skills, objectivity and political awareness skills will assist students in almost any career, she said.

"I am especially proud of the ways we are struggling as a college for models to integrate the basics of journalism with the changing media," Conrad said.