Scott Bush

How do you spend a rare Saturday not otherwise occupied by family commitments, projects, housework, etc.? Sleep in? Good guess, but no. Catch an early flick? Wrong again. Read a book you’ve been trying to finish for weeks? Close, but no cigar. Try driving down to Puyallup to judge high schooler’s newspaper layouts. Bingo.

Yep, I’m a glutton for punishment. For the third year now I’ve judged at the WJEA state conference. It’s always a Saturday and since it always seems to be located in a far-flung corner of our state (okay, Puyallup isn’t that far), we have to leave early to be there by 11am. I say “we” because my friend and fellow alumnus of the Hawkeye’s banner year, 1995, Larry Harnden came with me on 5 March—in fact, he drove. He, too, judged newspaper/newsmagazine layout.

Why bother?

It really is important, though. As a student, I participated in write-off competitions at the state journalism convention. Getting feedback from professionals in the community is very meaningful even if you don’t win an award. That’s why I tend to write too much, often to the chagrin of my fellow judges who want to get out of there before 3pm. Sure, you can just circle the number next to each criteria, but that’s subjective and frankly, doesn’t help a student learn. Pointers about technical aspects of the layout are useful, while highlighting its positive aspects where deserved really do encourage and teach. That, after all, is why we’re there. (It’s certainly not for the lunch, which again this year was sub sandwiches and again, no vegetarian options.)

The judging

This year the competition (and therefore judging) was slightly different: students were judged on their critique of a very bad newspaper layout in addition to the regular design elements of story placement, column use, photo placement and cropping, printer instructions, font choice, etc. It’s good to introduce a hybrid approach, as not all students are adept at the manual layout method. Okay, reverse that: few students are adept at not using InDesign/Quark/PageMaker for composing their layout. So students who know the concepts of good newspaper design can show that by identifying the obvious problems with a bad layout (and the subtler ones, too). I was excited to learn a few days later that one of the Hawkeye’s delegation, Kat Waldo, earned a superior in that category! Good for her; there weren’t a ton of outstanding entries and from what I remember, the “excellent” ones were quite good. (The juding is against standards, not other students; awards are: honorable mention, excellent, and superior. There can be no more than 10% superiors and 20% excellent awards given. This category had 17 contestants, so only two excellents could be awarded, and only one superior.)

Mini-reunion

The day was a reunion of sorts. In addition to Larry and myself, Mike Watters of Colby Creative presented a seminar (twice!) about working as a graphic designer. Jeff Nusser, now advisor of the Jagwire newsmagazine at Emerald Ridge High School, was the organizing chair of the conference. Also presenting was Michael McLaughlin, whose “Hella Tight” session I was sad to miss (it was about writing concisely, not rap lyrics, though I see where you may have been confused). Jeff and both Mikes are also alums (’95 and ‘91 for the elder Mike). It’s amazing that after all this time we’re still involved in varying degrees to student journalism. Our friend and former (as well as current) advisor of the Hawkeye, Vince DeMiero, probably got a bit of a kick out of that as well. If only Stacey had been there with our negatives…

But still…

It wasn’t all slices of fried gold though. Check out this particularly wonderful image depicting common sense at its finest. Yep, it says “EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY ALARM WILL SOUND,” yet there it was, propped wide open. Especially poignant in a school library, where clearly someone couldn’t read. Or was it that they knew no alarm would sound? Either way it’s not good.