Bad weather and scrambled schedules have become almost as common at the Mississippi Scholastic Press Association’s annual statewide spring convention as the honoring of student excellence.
After virtual conventions in 2020 and 2021, the event was canceled for tornadoes in 2022 and endured heavy downpours in 2023 and again on April 2, 2024.
Nevertheless, the 2024 event saw 460 student journalists descend on the University of Mississippi campus. It was the organization’s largest event since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Session topics included student podcasting, news, feature and editorial writing labs, marketing/entrepreneurship, video editing, and a host of other topics.
The Mississippi Association of Broadcasters was on hand to coach future television talent. Documentary filmmaker Antonio Tarrell guided students through his longform storytelling process. Assistant Professor Vanessa Charlot shared some of her rich photographic reporting from the Mississippi Delta.
“My favorite session by far has been ‘What TV professionals want you to know.’ I just randomly did that one last year and they critiqued my first segment I ever made. I walked away [from] that with a lot of new insight and inspiration on just how to make stories that matter and things I need to work on personally. One of the professionals was so impressed with my segment and he gave me his business card and that was the motivation that I needed to know that I want to do this for the rest of my life,” Annalise Kirk, Sports producer of Madison Central High School’s Jaguar News Network, said.
“I loved that this year, they didn’t critique a segment that I made, but they still critiqued one from our publication. It was still really insightful to know how our leadership as producers has impacted our underclassmen and their storytelling and what professionals have to say about that,” Kirk said.
For the afternoon plenary session, Mississippi Today’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Anna Wolfe graciously accepted our invitation to lead this spring’s Pamela E. Hamilton Keynote Address.
In short order, she was able to walk an auditorium full of student journalists through her approach to reporting on poverty in the state and the ensuing web of corruption that reporting eventually uncovered. With text messages and audio recordings from household names like former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and former Mississippi governor Phil Bryant, Wolfe showed students how good reporting can hold even the loftiest of public figures accountable.
The day concluded, as it usually does, with an energetic awards ceremony honoring the best student work from the current school year. Oxford’s Caroline Berry was named Mississippi High School Journalist of the Year and Annalise Kirk from Madison Central High School earned this year’s Orley Hood Award for Excellence in Sports Journalism.
Lafayette High School’s Sports Talk won Best Podcast, Tupelo’s Hi-Times was named Best News Publication, and Madison Central’s JNN earned this year’s Best Newscast honor.
All in all, the convention was a shot in the arm for students and teachers who spend each day on the front lines of storytelling for their local communities.
MSPA will host its annual Overby Adviser Institute in Oxford this summer, then turn its attention to the fall statewide student convention on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
MSPA was founded in 1947 and is housed jointly in the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics and the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi.
More information and a complete list of this spring’s winners can be found at mississippischolasticpress.com.