T: Also, our instagram is @overtheedgenewspaper. We are hoping to reboot Over The Edge’s media connections. One day. I’m excited.

M: I also learned to look deeper than the surface story. If something really cool shows up on the internet, you have to find out where it actually came from, not what everybody else says it’s about. Even if it means your article turns into a debunking article.

T: That was another surprise--at every panel I went to, the presenters stressed the importance of honesty and being yourself. When you think of the media, you generally think of a

really negative presence, a sleezy person who wants to expose a secret in order to get the

best “scoop,” or who hides behind the neighbourhood foliage in an effort to take a candid, embarrassing photo of a subject. Although I have a friend who recently completed her

Bachelor of Journalism and she is truly a lovely person, because of that stigma I had a hard time wanting to be a part of the journalism community myself. Also, the idea of interviewing people terrifies me. But after attending this conference and hearing the opinions of established writers, my entire viewpoint has changed.

M: To be frankly honest, I didn’t know what to expect walking into NASH. Actually, I had imagined a whole lot of uppity people glancing down their noses at you. But, none of the presenters were like that. A lot of them came off as, well, human. They all talked about having difficult times and varying degrees of mooching off of one’s parents. From that, I learned to not put all my eggs in one basket, journalistically speaking. And also to be wary of internships.

T: Thinking of all the amazing panels, choosing my favourite is nearly impossible,

but there are two that really stood out to me. First was a presentation called “The Chris Jones Happy Hour”; needless to say, it was presented by a guy named Chris Jones. He is a very talented writer for both Esquire and ESPN. He spoke a little about his experiences as a journalist and shared some key tips for those of us considering becoming writers; he talked about keeping ourselves motivated and doing what we believe in without disrespecting ourselves or other people. His story about time spent with MMA fighter Conor McGregor was especially inspiring (and hilarious).

Second was a talk called “The Best Radio in the World”, given by Veronica Simmonds and Chris Berube. Berube currently works mainly with CBC Q, and Simmonds has created works

UNBC Life 5

for CBC Spark and also hosts Braidio!, to name a couple of her works. The hosts played clips of podcasts for us students over the course of an hour and a half; between each clip they would explain why they found the piece so important and why it moved them.

To be honest, I knew very little about podcasts before last week, so this panel was incredibly eye-opening and introduced me to the power of sound and word arrangements. I learned an entirely new way to tell a story, and I absolutely loved it. I also very much appreciated the fact that the hosts were sharing a bottle of bourbon with anyone who asked them a question. It was the best.

M: My favourite presentations were all of the ones I attended. The best ones though, were the “Sourcing from Social Media” and the “Virtual Reality and Journalism” talks. Ishmael Daro, a Buzzfeed Canada writer, went over in detail how to find stories in social media, using hashtags, instinct and a good amount of double-checking. But I already talked about that really.

The virtual reality talk, on the other hand, was something I never before considered and I am genuinely interested in looking deeper into this. The New York Times

has just started picking up on this idea, of using media to help put people into

the story, maybe even as it is happening, and turning news into something

more interactive. With some practice in Maya and some experience in creating virtual, 3D maps, maybe I could one day be sending people into the news.

NASH 78 was definitely a worthwhile experience for everyone involved. Not only did the students who attended get to learn about journalism and all of the passion behind it, but they got to learn about it in Toronto, where they met many other fellow student journalists. It was an awesome opportunity to meet people with similar interests, and to share creative ideas with them.