The Fall 2021 Journalism Association of Community College conference was held virtually this past weekend and had over 200 students and faculty from Northern and Southern California in attendance.
The conference kicked off the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 5 with workshops ranging from “opinion writing basics” by Robin Epley to “Privacy Law” by Mike Hiestand.
Andrea Lopez-Villafaña, Managing Editor from Voice of San Diego and president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists San Diego and Tijuana chapter, was the conference’s keynote speaker on Friday night.
The conference continued Saturday with more workshops and affinity groups such as Latinx Journalists, LGBTQ+, Asian Journalists and more for students to attend.
JACC closed on Sunday, Nov. 7 with the annual awards show for Northern and Southern California community colleges. Moorpark Colleges, Moorpark Reporter was awarded 15 awards and recognitions, beating Santa Barbara City College in some categories.
For meritorious awards, Managing Editor Rachel Franklin was recognized twice for Enterprise News Story.
Editor-in-chief Ryan Bough won first place for Feature Photo, Sports Feature Photo and tied himself for first place awards for Sports Action Photo.
Former staff members Dominic D’Amico, Danny Stipanovich, Mitchell Ross and Leonard Cardilino won first place for Webcast/Broadcast News.
Shahbano Raza, current staff writer at Moorpark College won first place in the On-the-Spot Opinion Writing contest held during the conference.
Former sports staff writer, Kennedy Collier was awarded first place for sports game story and received an honorable mention for Profile Feature story.
For feature story, former staff writer and government desk editor, Aleea Evangelista won third place.
In first place for feature story, Ryan Bough was once again awarded.
Former sports staff and sports desk editor Danny Stipanovich won second place for Sports Game Story.
For the Video Journalism category, Ryan Bough and Danny Stipanovich took third place.
The staff as a team from Moorpark College’s Moorpark Reporter was awarded for General Excellence-Online Edition.
JACC is hopeful to be returning in the Spring to an in-person conference that will be held in Long Beach, CA.
For more information on JACC click here.
