Thursday, February 5
Conference packet pickup begins at 6:00 p.m., followed by a student mixer from 6:15–8:00 p.m. featuring live music by The SuperStation. Light finger foods will be provided.
Friday, February 6
Packet pickup runs from 8:00–9:00 a.m., followed by opening remarks from 9:00–9:30 a.m.
Concurrent educational sessions are held throughout the day from 9:30 a.m.–2:50 p.m., with an adviser lunch and SEJC business meeting from 11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
Dedicated student social time is scheduled from 3:00–6:00 p.m.
The day concludes with the Best of the South Awards Banquet and keynote from 6:30–9:00 p.m., featuring Victor Williams, a television news reporter with Atlanta News First and a Georgia Highlands College alumnus.
Saturday, February 7
Breakfast is available from 9:00–9:30 a.m., followed by the closing keynote from 9:30–10:00 a.m. by Bert Huffman, President of Georgia Public Broadcasting. The conference concludes with on-site competition results and closing remarks from 10:30–11:00 a.m.
For questions, please reach out to current SEJC president Katie Baxter at kbaxter@highlands.edu
Thursday, Feb 5:
5:45-8:00 PM: Packet Pickup Student Center Lobby
6:15-7:30: Mixer with Live Band (for A&E Coverage) Student Center Ballroom
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Friday, Feb. 6, 2026
8:30-9:00 AM: Packet Pickup Student Center Lobby
9 AM Welcome, Opening Remarks Student Center Ballroom
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9:30-10:20 – Session A (Rooms TBA)
A1: Yes, This Is a Real Job: Storytelling in Podcasts, Jeremy Powell
Jeremy Powell shares how storytelling works in podcasts, both video and audio. Using real examples from Georgia Public Broadcasting, this talk explores how the same story can feel different depending on whether you see it or hear it, and how sound, images, music, and editing help build emotion and meaning.
A2: Producing News for a Digital-First World, Bailey Striepling
TV news isn’t dead, it’s just moved to your phone. This session explores how digital producers transform traditional broadcast stories into viral, platform-ready content. Learn the tools, techniques, and formats shaping modern journalism across TikTok, Instagram, and wherever your audience scrolls.
A3: From Interview to Impact: Finding feature stories that matter, Severo Avila
Great features start with great listening. This session breaks down how to conduct interviews that go beyond surface-level quotes to uncover emotion while giving voice to your subject and telling a story. The focus is on interviewing techniques, story structure and voice. Turn interviews into stories that inform, engage and resonate with readers.
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10:30-11:20 – Session B (Rooms TBA)
B1: Beyond the Byline: Telling Music Stories Across Radio, Podcasts, and Culture (Panel)
Music journalism today lives far beyond album reviews—it thrives in podcasts, radio, cultural criticism, and community storytelling. This panel brings together experienced journalists, broadcasters, and scholars to explore how music reporting captures identity, history, and creative labor across platforms.
Panelists include Jeremy Powell, Director of Podcasts at Georgia Public Broadcasting and host of Peach Jam; Alex Volz, a Chattanooga-based reporter covering local music scenes across NPR radio and digital outlets; John Ike Sewell, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of West Georgia and longtime writer on punk, metal, and indie subcultures; and Carla D. Brown, creator and host of Support The Dope Radio, a podcast dedicated to elevating behind-the-scenes music industry voices.
Together, they’ll discuss storytelling techniques, ethical considerations, and platform strategy—while exploring how music journalism functions as cultural documentation, how storytelling choices shape legacy, and what aspiring journalists should know about building careers rooted in curiosity, credibility, and community.
B2: So You Want to Work in News? Let’s Talk About It, Bailey Streipling
This session gives you the real-world rundown on how today’s newsrooms operate, and what it takes to survive your first job. From handling breaking news and tight deadlines to navigating ethical calls under pressure, you’ll get practical advice to help you not just land a role in news, but thrive in it.
B3: From Fences to the Digital Town Square – How to Humanize our Digital Discourse, Alan Sanders
In the South, storytelling has always been a communal act, from wide front porches, to where neighbors leaned over fences to swap tales of family, faith, weather and hard-won wisdom, or around office water coolers where coworkers dissected the day’s news, politics and local scandals with a knowing nod. These intimate, face-to-face exchanges shaped how communities understood themselves, built trust and passed down stories across generations.
Today, that same impulse to connect, debate and narrate has migrated online. Social media platforms have become the modern digital town square of vast, borderless gathering places where stories spread instantly, voices from every corner collide and citizen journalists, podcasters and everyday Southerners shape narratives that once belonged solely to front-page bylines.
This shift brings both promise and peril: not only unprecedented reach and immediacy, but also echo chambers, misinformation and the loss of personal accountability that comes with looking someone in the eye over the fence. In this talk, we’ll explore how Southern storytelling traditions, rooted in hospitality, oral history and community, can inform and humanize our digital discourse, helping the next generation of journalists bridge the porch and the pixel to tell stories that still feel like home.
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11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. Adviser Lunch / SEJC Business Meeting
- Charger Cafe open for lunch for attendees
- FREE Professional Headshots Student Center Ballroom
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1:00-1:50 – Session C (Rooms TBA)
C1: Branding & Journalism, Megan Treglown
This session explores what branding means in the context of journalism and why it plays a critical role in trust, credibility, and audience connection. We will also cover how journalistic techniques can strengthen brand marketing. Attendees will learn how brand identity, voice, visuals, and values support ethical reporting and how those same principles help brands tell clearer, more credible stories. The discussion highlights how branding and journalism work together to build recognition, relevance, and trust in today’s evolving media landscape.
C2: From Assignment to Audience: Visual Storytelling That Works on Every Platform, Kurtis Hatcher
This session walks students through how a modern visual story is planned, executed, and published across web and social—without fragmenting the reporting or lowering standards. It covers how to think in story packages (photos, video, text), how editorial decisions change by platform, and how to maintain clarity, accuracy, and narrative cohesion from assignment to audience.
C:3 Content Creation in the Athlete Empowerment Era, Cory McCartney
The Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) boon has led to an evolution in how athletes engage with content, and leverage their social media presence. So how do content creators and storytellers operate in conjunction with athletes in this digital wild west? Insights into navigating credibility and engagement in today’s athlete-empowered landscape.
2:00-2:50 – Session D (Rooms TBA)
D1: Better Interviews, Better Stories: Techniques That Pull Stronger Reporting, Kurtis Hatcher:
A practical, skills-based session focused on how strong interviews drive strong journalism. Students learn how to design better questions, build rapport quickly, handle sensitive or high-pressure interviews, and translate raw interviews into cleaner, more accurate story structure across print, broadcast, and digital formats.
D2: AI Ethics for Student Newsrooms, Allen Dutch
College journalists often don’t have formal policies — this session can help them build one. Ethical decision-making around AI use before mistakes happen. With nearly constant changes to the abilities of AI, it’s important that student reporters and editors start thinking about it to stay ahead of errors and bad choices.
Students will explore: Transparency and disclosure expectations, Bias and hallucination risks, Why human accountability still matters, How to create a basic AI policy for student media
D3: Future Feature: Researching for Feature Writing in the Age of AI, Brooke Turbyfill
What are the risks, benefits, and practical uses of generative AI in feature writing? This interactive workshop will examine potential risks, where genAI can be useful, and ideas for applying AI research in the context of feature journalism.
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3:00 PM – 6:00 PM Student-Only Social Time Courtyard Marriott
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6:30 PM – 9:00 PM Best of the South Awards Banquet Student Center Gym
with keynote speaker Victor Williams ___________________________________________________________________________
Saturday, Feb. 7, 20269:00 AM – 11:00 AM Breakfast, Keynote address by Bert Huffman, CEO of Georgia Public Broadcasting,
SEJC On-Site Competition Results,
Announcement of SEJC 2027 Host School,
Closing Remarks