This past April, GlenOaks’ newspaper and yearbook staff attended OSMA (Ohio Scholastic Media Association). OSMA is a collection of student journalists and advisers, with a goal to help students learn, inspire and navigate them in their careers as student journalists.
OSMA hosts four different regional workshops in the fall and one convention in the spring. Along with the spring convention is an award ceremony. Each of these events has different sessions for students to attend and learn from professionals about certain subjects related to journalism.
This year was the first year the Eagle has won All-Ohio for its website.
“All-Ohio means that you’re hitting all the parameters of the rubric,” adviser Angela Spano said.
Getting the All-Ohio award is a huge achievement for news staff as the staff has never gotten an All-Ohio for its website before.
“I am still in shock. If you had asked me my freshman year, sitting in the back of the news staff that I would have led the entire staff to achieving something that had only happened one other time in GlenOak history, I would have said you were crazy,” senior and editor-in-chief Joshua Lantz said.
One reason cited on the rubric for the achievement was the Eagle’s posting schedule. However, getting the Eagle’s website up and running efficiently took a long time. Trying to keep the website up to date and on a good schedule for posting took about five years. It first started with just trying to get people to write and post stories, then to make sure new stories were up and running so many times a week.
“We have a budget for the website, we have someone’s name down for every day and that means that their story will be due that day and go up the following week,” Spano said.
With this budget and the staff’s hard work, they were up and posting almost every day from October-late April. The staff also reviewed last year’s rubric and judges’ comments and worked to make changes. News staff was able to accomplish the goal they made five years ago when deciding to post on a website.
“I think at the beginning of the year, that was really what we were focused on,” senior and editor in chief Lucy Shaheen said. “While I would have loved to win for the physical as well, it still is awesome that we won for the website, especially because I think a lot of journalism is moving primarily online.”
Winning All-Ohio this year doesn’t mean that the website is perfect; there are still improvements to be made that will be coming next year.
Besides winning All-Ohio, there were five individual superior awards.
“I think it speaks volumes to our staff’s talent as journalists. I have been honored to have led some amazing writers and creative minds that have gotten us to where we are today,” Lantz said. “I believe that supporting someone in their passions but challenging them in the right way leads to success and growth in your team when leading.”
Next year, news staff’s goal is to get All-Ohio for the paper and the website. Lantz encourages students who have thought about joining to give it a try.
“News staff is more than just about writing for an assignment, it’s about sharing your peers, teachers and community members’ stories,” Lantz said. “News staff will give you the creative freedom to do things no other class at the school provides and when joining this class, you will gain a community and teacher in the school like no other.”