West Side Story website wins 9th place in the nation, 5 staffers win individual awards at D.C. convention
The West Side Story staff in Washington D.C. for the JEA/NSPA national high school journalism convention Nov. 6-9. Pictured left to right: Adviser Sara Whittaker, Isabelle Robles, Jaycie Weathers, Brittani Langland, Mary Mondanaro and McKenna Harris.
November 11, 2014
The National Scholastic Press Association announced the winners of the Pacemaker, Individual Awards and Best of Show Awards on Saturday, Nov. 8 at the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention in Washington D.C.
The West Side Story website – wsspaper.com – received ninth place in the nation for large school publication websites in the Best of Show contest. Kai Gui ’15 is the webmaster, and Lushia Anson ’15 and Lauren Knudson ’15 are co-web editors. For more information on the contests, visit the National Scholastic Press Association’s website.
Jaycie Weathers ’15 competed with 2,168 participations in the national Write-off contests, and she received a rating of Excellent in the Newsmagazine: Layout category.
Megumi Kitamoto ’15, Brittani Langland ’15, Katie Peplow ’15 and Weathers received second place in the national Multimedia Sports Story of the Year contest for their web coverage titled “Homecoming 2013 recap.”
Leela Sathyaputri ’14 and Wang received second place in the national Illustration Design of the Year contest for their illustration on the cover of the September 2013 issue.
Kitamoto and Hilah Kohen ’14 received third place in the national Diversity Story of the Year Contest for their article titled “Searching for Peace” that ran in the March 2014 issue of West Side Story.
Tyler Voss ’14 and Shirley Wang ’14 received honorable mention in the national Infographic Design of the Year contest for their infographic titled “Senior Class 2014: By the Numbers.”
The Multimedia Story of the Year contest is co-sponsored by PBS NewsHour Extra and honors student work in three categories: News, Feature and Sports. Entries were judged based on the following criteria:
- Value, importance or worth of story
- Innovation in use of multimedia
- Technical quality of multimedia elements
- Adherence to copyright laws
- Quality of writing and editing
- Credibility and leadership
The print Story of the Year contest is co-sponsored by The Headline Club, the Chicago chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The contest honors student work in the following categories: News, Feature, Editorial, Sports and Diversity. The categories combined yielded more than 750 entries. Judges selected finalists based on the following criteria:
- Value, importance or worth of story
- Quality of reporting and quotes
- Quality of writing and editing
- Credibility and leadership
