ODYSSEY Media Group Menu Editor Kalli Samaltanos, a junior, gives a speech on March 5 at the Southern Interscholastic Press Association’s Saturday night banquet. Samaltanos was named 2023 SIPA President at the banquet, where she presented her vision for next year’s convention to those in attendance. “(As) the President, I really want to bring more sessions that involve the students, getting them to have more hands-on learning time,” Samaltanos said. “And then along with that, I also really want to include more digital-focused sessions like working on unusual convergence platform(s) because that’s where we are right now in journalism. I think it would be really beneficial for the young journalists to see that and work with that.”
Menu Editor Kalli Samaltanos, a junior, advocates for hands-on learning and digital literacy in her SIPA presidency speech.
Below is Kalli Samaltanos’ speech in its entirety.
Hey, y’all! My name is Kalli Samaltanos, I hope y’all have seen my stickers around, “Rally for Kalli” if you haven’t, come to see me I’ll hook you up. I’m a junior from Clarke Central High School in Athens, Georgia (go, Dawgs by the way. National champs…it’s no big deal) and the Digital Editor for the ODYSSEY Media Group, and I am your 2023 SIPA president.
I’ve known I wanted to be SIPA president since my freshman year at the 2020 conference.
I watched as one of my favorite juniors and Journalism I Facilitators, Owen Donnelly, took the stage and gave a speech that won him his presidency. We shared the same love for SIPA and student journalism that so many of you have, and the memory of that trip ended up being something I held onto in the following months.
Raise your hand if you did online school…me too! Actually, immediately after the 2020 conference, my school went virtual for almost a year.
Journalism, the class that once inspired me to use my voice, turned into three hours a day of Zoom sessions and SIPA did the same. I’ve daydreamed for almost two years about getting to come back to Soda City to continue sharing my love for this conference and its people and we’re finally back.
This year, the theme for the SIPA 2022 conference is “It’s Our Turn.” As I look into the audience, I see a room filled with the next generation of professional journalists and I think about the theme that the SIPA committee has chosen for us.
As we prepare to take the next steps in our careers as journalists, we must strive to have a conference that prepares us for that responsibility.
As we prepare to take the next steps in our careers as journalists, we must strive to have a conference that prepares us for that responsibility.
Henry Anatole Grunwald once said “Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph, and the signs of horror are still in the air.”
Raise your hand if you’re on Instagram. Keep your hand up if you’re on Snapchat. Tiktok?
So as a member of the ODYSSEY Media Group’s Digital staff, I understand that in this day and age, most—if not all of us—speak into a digital world. With platforms bigger than ever before, we all have the opportunity to make our voices heard. Through SIPA, we learn skills and tools that are necessary for learning how to use that voice.
As SIPA president, I will advocate for more sessions that reflect journalism’s current status. Whether that be how to build a website or how to make a successful TikTok account for your school’s news publication, the skills you need to thrive in a digital environment need to be taught. As SIPA President, I will do everything in my power to give you that opportunity.
The skills you need to thrive in a digital environment need to be taught. As SIPA President, I will do everything in my power to give you that opportunity.
Along with a high emphasis on moving forward with the journalism world, I want to place urgency on the need for student-led and interactive sessions.
How many of y’all actually enjoy being on a Zoom call? Many of us, including myself, have spent countless hours in front of a computer screen these past couple of years.
TOP competitions are a highlight of SIPA for me. I love that the older kids get to mix with the younger kids, how we run around and get to show off everything we’ve learned at school.
Instead of just learning about interviewing, we need to be interviewing and the same goes for every other skill. If there is a time for more immersive sessions, it is now and as your SIPA president, I will advocate for more hands-on learning experiences.
The theme for this year’s convention is “It’s Our Turn.” We are the journalists of the future and the time to prepare for those positions starts now. Through these sessions being more hands-on, you can learn to harness the full potential of your talents and be better prepared for journalistic work outside of high school.
Thank you all so much for this opportunity. Go out and enjoy the weekend and everything SIPA has to offer.
And remember, rally for Kalli!
*In Samaltanos’s speech, she indicates that SIPA is a conference. However, it is a convention.
