What we can learn from others.

This past Sunday and Monday, I was in Las Vegas, Nev. for the Society of Professional Journalists national convention at Aladdin Hotel & Casino.

The idea of my attending the convention was to accept on behalf of The Orion staff the Mark of Excellence Award for the best all-around weekly newspaper in the country published once a week.

The awards were presented at a luncheon (The "eon" at the end of "lunch" can be translated to mean "super-fancy event that makes my redneck ass feel awkward") on Monday afternoon.

Sitting at my table was yours truly, a grad student from USC, three staffers from the Daily Wildcat at the University of Arizona, and four students from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

The students from BSU had won the Mark of Excellence Award for best all-around independent online student publication for Ball Bearings.

This site is, pretty much, amazing. It's what Cat Bytes could be if we had the same amount of time to devote to it.

Ball Bearings uses a real package format with their stories. There's text, photos, video, and interactive components with the stories.

Something that can very frustrating to Chico State students, being in a journalism program that puts so much focus on writing, is to see the writing not necessarily be the centerpiece of a story, particuarly in a Web magazine.

But, as Ball Bearings shows, that's not necessarily bad.

Oh, and we all came to a concensus that there should have been a hamburger/hot dog option for lunch as opposed to poached salmon with asparagus tips, boiled eggs, Russian salad and sturgeon caviar.