Everyone has a story to tell. For some career storytellers, they start at their high school newspaper.
Among those storytellers include me.
In my junior year at Francis Lewis High School, I had the pleasure of capturing the story of a student and artist who is partially color blind, meaning she can’t see certain pairs of colors together. Originally from the Philippines and mute, she struggled with adjusting to American culture — in fact, she learned American Sign Language before English — but drawing transended cultural barriers for her.
In November 2018, as a senior, I attended Baruch College’s annual New York City High School Journalism Conference with my advisers and peers. The event allows student journalists to learn from seasoned reporters and editors in workshops. One workshop that I attended was held by the program coordinator — and the person who’d become my first journalism professor at Baruch.
The conference concludes with the Newsies — like the Pulitzers but for high school students and judged by professionals and faculty. Seven pieces from my paper won, including my artist profile as first-place winner in the arts and entertainment category.
Back then, feedback for the pieces were read aloud. Mine was judged by Ralph Blumenthal, reporter at The New York Times and distinguished lecturer at Baruch. What he said about my work raised my self-esteem and made me think I should keep writing features.
In March 2023, during my senior year at Baruch, I was on the conference’s student journalism panel and caught up with my advisers and current students.
Marcellino Melika, who dared to interviewed me for an article about the 2023 conference, received an honorable mention in sportswriting for a piece on the female teams.
Our paper’s sports section isn’t very active, so I was blown away! I’m glad to see Melika continuing to tell stories and producing podcasts.
I bring this all up to say I wouldn’t be writing stories today had I not been encouraged by Blumenthal’s kind words and met with younger student journalists who reminded me of my “why.”
I want today’s journalism students to feel even more inspired, so please join me in celebrating the winners of this year’s Newsies, announced on April 5. There were more high schools participating this year — which is a good sign — but I want to give some more love to two winning stories from Francis Lewis.
First place in the citywide multimedia category went to Sophia Park, Tony Itzhaky and Taylor Burke. They caught up with Francis Lewis’ culinary program.
Second place in the citywide features category went to Alexandra Baron and Aisha Saeed. They looked at cell phone usage among students
All of the winners for the 2024 program — as well as information about the 2023 and 2022 programs — can be found at https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/hsjournalism/.
Much love to Anthony Coloneri — one of my advisers and a former staffer at a business news publication *cough, cough* — for letting me know about this year’s good news.
By the way, I’m proud to report that the artist I featured — Erika Versoza, who goes by the alias “Anya Miyako” — continues to pursue her dream and studied at the college referenced in my piece.
Her art style has changed since I spoke with her, and I’m glad my piece preserves the younger version of her.
On a final note, I’m delighted to have met Ralph Blumenthal in the flesh last year when he was a panelist for The Ticker’s journalism alumni event. He didn’t write for The Ticker, but he is a former editor-in-chief for The Campus newspaper at The City College of New York.
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Dearest Reverie 