TWSS’ Equality Officer Emily Jordan and President Susie Long reflect on their experience co-hosting the SPA’s national conference, sharing their thoughts on the event and the joys of student journalism.
Recently, That’s What She Said Magazine had the joy of co-hosting the Student Publication Association’s National Conference and Awards alongside Epigram, The Croft, The Bristorian and La Civetta. We welcomed publications from around the country to our brilliant city and met with hundreds of student journalists to celebrate all our hard work over the past year.
Taking the torch from our Glaswegian friends, the Students’ Union was buzzing with life from Friday to Sunday, hosting a welcome party with a pub quiz and karaoke (with a brilliant rendition of Taylor Swift’s ‘Love Story’ from the Epigram team). Goodie bags galore were distributed, publications were traded and so much valuable experience and support was shared around the ever-growing student publication community.
Starting day one, Susie headed to the editors’ coffee morning, which was an amazing opportunity to meet other publication heads and editors-in-chief. To learn how other student publications deal with funding, printing, and more was fascinating, and a lovely testament to what the Student Publication Association is all about.
We then had the opportunity to hear a talk from Hugh Pym: the health editor of the BBC, which gave us some brilliant insights into reporting through global crises and pandemics, as well as learning about publication biases, avoiding fear-mongering, and so much more.
Meanwhile, The Pegg Theatre was full of life, with great opportunities and stalls for writers new and old. Every journalist needs a headshot, and the SPA very kindly provided a professional photographer to take photos for attendees.
A particularly notable workshop on infographics was held on Saturday by Meike Eijsberg, infographic designer for The Telegraph, on the best ways to present important information graphically. She advised us on assembling three integral elements of any article: words to tell the story, images to evoke emotion and/or provide context and an infographic to present trends, patterns and outliers. Her welcoming demeanour and thorough explanations meant that data science was accessible to aspiring journalists of all backgrounds, so you can expect to see many more fancy graphics to go alongside our articles very soon.
We then headed to the swap shop, where we could show people our lovely Nostalgia mags, and have ample opportunity to peruse the work of other great publications – we’ve got plenty of inspiration for our upcoming magazine Voice, so stay tuned for that one! (We particularly enjoyed completing all the crosswords that we found in people’s mags and papers on our coffee break!)
After an amazing, intense day at the Richmond Building, we headed home to get glammed up for the awards!
This year’s awards ceremony presented the highest number of awards ever given at a SPANC! We are honoured to have been shortlisted in the Best Design (Magazine) category, alongside many other incredible nominees. The quality of the competition was incredibly high, and we are incredibly proud of our Print Co-ordinator Lauren for driving the recent release of Nostalgia, which put us in the running. She’s been hard at work alongside our Arts Editors, Carly and Ella, (and the rest of the team) working on our next edition. Whilst we may not have walked away with an award, we are so happy that fellow Bristolians at The Croft won this category – a huge congratulations to them.
A personal highlight of ours was watching our new friends at UCL, Women’s Wrongs, being commended for their work as a newcomer publication. It’s always lovely to see another feminist publication succeeding, and to feel how supportive our creative feminist community can be. Advocating for immediate ceasefire and using our platforms to help Palestine, adorned in TWSS friendship bracelets, Women’s Wrongs are a force to be reckoned with. Events like SPANC represent our shared passion for storytelling and remind us of why we do this!
Returning (slightly fragile) to the SU the next morning, there was even more to learn than we’d imagined. From invaluable workshops on leading a team and discussing writing for alternative audiences, to health reporting and insights into political polling – the SPAs have truly created an event that caters to everyone aspiring to become a journalist.
The weekend was very kindly sponsored by a whole host of organisations, kindly supporting student journalists from all backgrounds, so we’d like to say a special thank you to Newsworks, News Associates, PA Media Academy, the University of Sheffield, Savanta, RockBox, Cardiff University and the National Association of Science Writers. And of course, a huge thank you to the trustees, executives, and other volunteers for the SPA – we love everything that you do!
The future of journalism is incredibly bright, and we’re thankful for all our brilliant contributors for making our little magazine shine!
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