EBy Alyssa Allemand
The Wisconsin Newspaper Association Conference took place at the Madison Concourse Hotel in downtown Madison March 7-8. As editor of On The Edge, I spoke on a panel titled “How (Whether?) College Students Consume News.”
The panel was organized by Chuck Melvin, who also served as the moderator. Melvin is currently an adjunct instructor at Marquette University and has previously worked for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel as well as The Associated Press.
I was honored to speak alongside four other college students: Jennifer Walter, executive director of the Marquette Wire; Sydney Czyzon, managing editor of the Marquette Tribune; Sammy Gibbons, editor-in-chief of UW-Madison’s The Daily Cardinal; and Chelsea Johanning, chief designer for the Marquette Wire.
At the start of the panel, I was nervous that our crowd would be small, and the discussion would mostly take place among the panelists and the moderator. However, the audience grew, and we ended up with an almost-full room of people interested in our panel.
I was happy enough just to be included, but the inquiries from the audience made it so much more worthwhile. We discussed the use of social media in news, the niche community of college journalists, the role of news in today’s political climate, and the growing presence of women in journalism.
Conversation also focused on what we are willing to subscribe to and pay for when it comes to news outlets, and how this may affect our own careers in journalism.
There was a lot of discussion around the future of print news, as well. Most everyone agreed it is a dying media. An audience member assured us that even though print copy may not exist much longer, social media has actually been extremely beneficial in spreading news and making it accessible to a wider range of people.
As Johanning said, as long as there are questions to ask and truth to find, news and those participating in journalism will be around.
Remember: we make this campus, and we can know the truth about it.
For more information on the conference, visit WNA’s website: https://www.wnanews.com/.
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