Middle and high school students build storytelling skills at Portland Media Day

Portland Media Day participants learn about the latest gadgets available to modern multimedia storytellers.
Portland Media Day participants learn about the latest gadgets available to modern multimedia storytellers.

Story and photos by Jeff Collet

On Friday, March 9, the next generation of storytellers converged on the University of Oregon's Portland campus on the White Stag Block for a full day of presentations and workshops on hot topics in journalism, communication and new media.

Portland Media Day, hosted by the UO School of Journalism and Communication in partnership with Northwest Scholastic Press, featured 35 speakers representing a broad range of professional media and academic backgrounds.

Six SOJC faculty and 15 undergraduate and graduate students led workshops at the full-day event. Professional instructors included representatives from The Oregonian, Allison+Partners Public Relations, KOIN TV, KGW-TV and Street Roots.

Professional event photographer Melissa Toledo teaches students how to read a scene and create usable, professional imagery during Portland Media Day.
Professional event photographer Melissa Toledo teaches students how to read a scene and create usable, professional imagery during Portland Media Day.

"Portland Media Day grew out of two things," said Northwest Scholastic Press executive director and the School of Journalism and Communication's NextGen Media outreach coordinator, Anthony Whitten. "We wanted to better serve the schools in the Portland metro area who were not necessarily making the trek to Eugene for Fall Media Day. And a number of our high school partners teach semester courses and needed enrichment opportunities for new journalism and media students in their courses."

More than 250 middle and high school students, teachers and chaperones representing 15 schools made the trek to Portland's Old Town from as far east as Powder, Ore.; as far south as West Albany and as far north as Vancouver, Washington. Participation this year was up 28 percent over last year's event.

In addition to Portland Media Day and Fall Media Day, the SOJC's NextGen Media hosts Next Generation Storytelling, a weeklong immersive experience on the Eugene UO campus, for high school students interested in learning journalism and communication skills while getting a taste of college life. Registration is still open for the residential camp, held June 24-28.

Check out photos from Portland Media Day in the slideshow above.

Jeff Collet is a first-year graduate student in the SOJC's Portland-based Multimedia Journalism Master's program. He has been a content creator for the SOJC Communication Office in Portland since November 2017. Jeff studied visual communication design as an undergraduate at Western Oregon University. Prior to that, he served over nine years in the U.S. Army as a combat photographer/videographer and multimedia illustrator. See more of his work at jeffcollet.com. Follow Jeff on Instagram @colletasyouseeit.