My first JACC conference

Last weekend, the TM staff attended SoCal's JACC convention. JACC stands for Journalism Association of Community Colleges. The convention started Friday noon and culminated with an awards presentation on Saturday night.

The convention consisted of various workshops such as "Headline writing" and "Getting and using good quotes."

My personal favorite was "Getting into journalism without any experience." The guest speaker was Gustavo Arellano, reporter from the OC Weekly and the author of the popular "Ask a Mexican" column. The highlight of the weekend was me getting an autographed copy of his book. The tragic ending to my weekend, was losing that book.

Aside from the workshops, there were also on the spot competitions that were held. I participated in the Critical Review and Feature Writing competitions. By far, my favorite was the Critical Review.

We were asked to review a play called "Urinetown." The play was hilarious, and I highly recommend it. The Feature Writing was on a Newspaper owner who was advocating recognition for Latino reporters. His goal was a good one, but his mode of presenting it was dull and lacked enthusiasm.

The conference was at Cal State Fullerton, which coincidentally was only a few miles away from the wildfires that raged during the weekend. Smoke penetrated the air and cast a shadow over the city, while the smell of smoke infiltrated the buildings. It was an eerie sight to stare at the sun through clouds of smoke.