While most people took the month of August to prepare for the upcoming school year, one person used a couple of days to learn more.

Susan Stephans, WNIJ news director, participated in a workshop hosted by the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, an environmental news service carried by 120 radio stations in 16 states and one in Canada. It was held from Aug. 8-12.

“I’m glad I got the opportunity to go,” Stephans said. “I’m endlessly grateful.”

The conference was taught by David Candow who retired with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) after 30 years.

“[During his retirement] he coaches people on radio journalism,” Stephans said.

During the five days, Candow taught Stephans, along with five other radio journalists from Chicago, Minneapolis, Ohio and New York, about making stories more interesting, thinking more creatively, performing better and writing scripts.

“We learned how to write eye to ear instead of eye to eye,” Stephans said. “It’s different when people hear your writing instead of reading it.”

Each day of the conference lasted eight or nine hours in the Mike Wallace House, across from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus.

Candow taught by having everyone participate, like interviewing each other and rewriting scripts.

“It was more intimate,” Stephans said. “Other conferences I went to were two-hour workshops and I never learned anything that changed my life.”

Stephans plans to teach others, like co-workers and the interns, what she had learned.

“I didn’t have a whole lot of time to put what I learned into effect,” Stephans said. “But I learned to sharpen my writing in a more direct style.”

Stephans, who used to be a disc jockey in college, had always wanted to be a writer. She decided to combine both her interests in radio journalism. She has been at WNIJ for six years,

and she received an award from the Associated Press for Best News-writing in Illinois.

“When I think about it now, I can’t believe that I won that award,” Stephans said. “I feel that my writing has a long way to go.”