I traveled to Washington, D.C. with seven other MATC students. Our group attended MediaFest25, which is the nation’s largest media convention for professionals and college students. As the sports photo editor for the MATC Times, I was eager to learn more about sports photojournalism and how to improve my work in the newspaper because I am planning for a career in sports photography.

Some key takeaways from speaker Gary Metzker in his session titled “Why Your Sports Page Sucks” were: keeping photos at the center for visual impact, making it visually interesting, and staying away from cutouts of photos, which are images where the background has been removed. Metzker encouraged photojournalism students to “take a chance,” or not be afraid of voicing our opinions on how we want our work to be presented.

While this event didn’t offer a lot of speakers that focused on sports, it did have several sessions on photography and using visuals to tell stories. In another session, Communication Professor Dylan Wilson discussed the ethics of photojournalism, covering such topics as photo manipulating, artificial intelligence in image creation and editing, and responsibility in visual storytelling.

As a group, we further bonded during our free time and a couple of group meals. I am forever grateful for this amazing opportunity with such a wonderful group of people who were so eager to learn and improve our newspaper. I am excited to see how we progress as a staff as this year comes to a close and a new year unfolds.

The MATC Times is always looking for students who are interested in writing sports stories, which is a great way to meet your fellow Stormers and build your resume. If interested, email the Times at [email protected].