This year the Northern Iowan (NI) went to the Associated Collegiate Press (ACP) conference in San Francisco. Our team took on the state of California expecting to experience the beautiful sun. Instead, we brought in what felt like Iowa weather to the golden state. Our journey to the state felt like a Ferris Bueller episode, we arrived an hour late to our connecting flight and the team had a 10-minute window to go across the Chicago airport. When we landed I ran to the connection. I arrived on time, and so did our team. We later found out as we were seated, the flight was delayed and the editing team made it to San Francisco around 1am, and to the hotel at 2:00am. We left around 4:00pm from campus and everyone was starving.

We started our food search at the hotel. Everything was closed, but 7/11. Our team ordered the pizza and we munched on what appeared to be the craziest episode for our trip. 

During our time in San Francisco we learned a lot through the workshops and we experienced for a brief moment what it was like to be in a city of opportunities.

“The San Francisco trip was such an amazing experience,” said Diamond Roundtree, campus life editor. “making connections, viewing the vast skyscrapers, Starbucks everyday. It was truly beautiful! My favorite part was the Black Journalist round table!”

An important point I took away from the ACP conference was to never be afraid to push the envelope. The envelope, meaning breaking the expectation and boundary in how one can communicate information. This feedback goes across the board in social media, news designing or even creating a poster. Pushing the envelope in school was something the presenter encourage to do. College is the place to fail and the place to push unique ideas in which other professionals may hesitate doing in the real world. Be bold and push ideas that feel crazy, because one day someone will acknowledge the passion.

“It was great to be able to share not only our struggles and triumphs as a newsroom with other colleges, but to also discuss important topics in the journalism world right now,”Mallory Schmitz, News Editor said. “I attended one session about libel law that referenced court cases and another session about reporting on the transgender community.”

Our Spanish Editor, Karina Ortiz, appreciated the LatinX roundtable discussion at the conference as well, “It was comforting to know that we are individuals who may face the same challenges regardless of gender or age,”she said, ”I carry that memory with me like a positive pendant to remind myself that loneliness is a myth because maybe we all face similar experiences, but rarely get the chance to voice it.”
Something all social medias can benefit from in newsrooms is doing listacles a top-three list feature of news going on that week and a quick recap on what people need to be aware of. The presenters mentioned having a lot of success in doing listacles and they also built incentives through their story pages like quizzes to test readers. None of the quizzes of course are graded. But it incentivized factual information in the audience and helped clear out rumors to readers who don’t have time to read a 1500 word story. In the same workshop,the speakers emphasized that in social media not a lot of professionals who work in the industry have the answers, but finding the answer is always an active approach for each director.


On our trip we experienced the city, visited the golden gate bridge and saw Alcatraz.  Our editing team bonded, and we truly spent time getting to know more about our goals, names and fun facts. It was a very rewarding trip. It was reaffirming and I reconnected with some friends in which I am glad to hear they are doing well. If you are reading this, know I am thinking of you and hope you are doing great.


When the trip was done we packed our bags, said goodbye to some great friends and won 7th place for best website for the Northern Iowan at the national stage. This was the only submission we did this year, but next year, be on the lookout for our name.