University of Montana’s Journalism Day
May 22, 2023
Editor’s Note: Shoutout to Brianna Brandon—the reporter on this story—for winning the sports event award for her coverage of the girls soccer team’s success at the state championship! The winning article can be found here.
For the first time since the founding of the BC Chronicle, nine BCCHS student journalists ventured to Missoula for Journalism Day at the University of Montana. The university’s journalism school sponsored the event and hosted different high school journalism groups from across the state. Upon arrival, the students attended an awards assembly where they received journalistic awards in several different categories. Afterward, students had the option to attend three seminars of their choice that focused on more specific elements of journalism. These sessions were led by faculty at the University of Montana and took place in the school’s journalism building.
Some of the seminar choices included ethics in journalism, investigative journalism, separating facts from fiction in journalism, and environmental journalism, to name a few. There were even some sessions in which students conducted audio interviews around campus and had the chance to run the television control room situated on campus. Junior Matthew Rah was one such student. “It was really cool seeing all of the technology that they had for the broadcast system. I saw and learned more interesting things than I was expecting,” said Rah. The trip provided valuable insight to the students about journalism and gave them a chance to see the campus as a whole. The sessions were informative and helped provide more context to a wide range of journalistic topics, whether it be helpful information on how to run a story or different types of photography.
