FHN Publications Staff Celebrates National Scholastic Journalism Week With Award Ceremonies and Fun Activities
![Students from around the school come together to have pancakes on Friday Feb.23 to celebrate the end of Scholastic Journalism Week](https://FHNtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_0578.jpg)
Throughout the week of Feb.19-23, the JEA hosted their 100th annual Scholastic Journalism Week. This week is dedicated to celebrating student journalists and all of their work inside of a publications room from all across the country. At FHN the 2023-2024 publications team consists of 95 staffers, 31 hard working editors and its two advisors Jordyn Kiel and Aaron Manfull. Together this team has earned a total of 10 Best of SNO awards, were named one of 28 schools in the nation to be honored with the 1st Amendment Press Freedom Award and were the only school in the nation to be inducted into the NSPA Hall of Fame for both the North Star Newspaper and the FHNtoday website at the Boston national convention in November of 2023.
To celebrate Scholastic Journalism Week, Mrs. Kiel and Mr. Manfull hosted several fun activities throughout the week to celebrate all of the student journalists in the program. On Wednesday Feb.21, they would host the annual Quill and Scroll ceremony at Ginghams. Quill and Scroll is a prestigious program that celebrates some of the top student journalists in the nation and a program record 59 journalists were inducted this year. To wrap up the week Mrs. Kiel would host her own pancake celebration before school on Friday where anyone could come and celebrate the end of Scholastic Journalism Week with some pancakes, donuts and orange juice.
Throughout the school year all five of our journalism staffs have going above and beyond to create quality content that showcases the Francis Howell community the best we can. From breaking news stories, photo galleries of all big school events and a brand new sports staff that showcases all of the amazing student athletes at North, the program has been working tirelessly to keep the community in the loop with all things FHN. Below you can read about all of work that each staff has produced this year, what they still have planned and quotes from their editors about what makes journalism important to them.
![NEWS STAFF](https://FHNtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_0584-1-e1708733885498.jpg)
This year the News staff made the jump to have a glossy newspaper. This new style of our paper besides looking cooler, allows for us to give our readers a more crisp paper that is easier on the eyes which in turn allows for our photos and illustrations to stick out more. So far we’ve produced four newspapers with two more dropping later this year. The FHNtoday website is also ran out of this hour and this year they’ve made many changes to the layout and content of the site. More content is being posted then ever before with at least three new pieces being posted daily. The site also now has an updated FHNgameday subsite, brand new Multimedia and Livestream tabs and it’s branding has been updated to match the new gold. On the News staff we believe that everyone has a story and it’s our job as responsible journalists to find those stories and properly tell them to the best of our ability.
“On the News staff we have the freedom to write about basically whatever we want. I love the diversity in content that we’re constantly producing. We have everything from breaking news, opinions or features about people around the building. We’re always producing a little bit of everything.” – EIC of FHNtoday.com, Chase Pray
“My favorite part about being in journalism is learning skills I wouldn’t be able to learn in any other class and making friends inside and outside class.” -EIC of the North Star Newspaper, Mckenna Hudson
“My favorite part about being in the journalism program is the amount of experience that I am able to gain. Journalism has taught me essential life skills that can be used in my day-to-day life. I am entirely grateful for my time here.” -News Staff Managing Editor, Ray Hathcock
“My favorite parts of staff are the experiences I gain and the people I meet. Everyone has a story and it’s an honor to be able to tell it.”– Online Editor, Drew Johnson
“As part of the journalism program, one of the most important things I’ve improved is my communication skills. It gives me a chance to branch out and talk to different people I wouldn’t usually talk to and helps me figure out how to help others make really cool stuff.”– Design Editor, Michaela Manfull
“Journalism has taught me very strong communication skills, it made me lose the fear of public speaking or voicing opinions and ideas which isn’t as easy to lose in other clubs.” – News Section Editor, Miranda Fabian
“Being in journalism has given me a forum to voice my thoughts and opinions and work to help the change in the school I want to see.” – Opinions Editor, Violet Newton
![PHOTO STAFF](https://FHNtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_0220-2.jpg)
The photography staff for FHN media has been working hard all year to create content for FHNtoday, The North Star and Excalibur yearbook. We take pictures of pretty much everything school based, whether it be sports, academics, club activities, dances, etc. We also cover student and community life. We also added stopmotion into the mix last year, and it’s been going very well and it’s a fun project to see go up on social media promoting things around the school. Since then we have improved in our quality greatly, and even submitted ourselves for an Innovation Pacemaker award. We plan to continue refining our stop motion process, and use it throughout the program for years to follow. We as a staff agree on how special and fun capturing moments are. Being able to capture those memories for everyone to enjoy is one of the most rewarding aspects of being on the photography staff. It’s a completely different feeling from being in the stands of the buzzer beating game, rather than being right next to the bench and feeling the emotions of the players as you capture memories that people will look back on forever.
“It’s hard to pick my favorite part about being in our program. There’s been so many opportunities, like going on trips, awards, even being allowed to experience the feeling of being able to take photos is insane, but the memories and friends I’ve made within the program that will last a lifetime is hard to beat.” – Photo EIC, Payton Johnston
“My favorite part of being apart of the journalism program is having the opportunity to be around so many resources and amazing people. I have met some of my best friends through the program and have learned how to professional work with an entire program. With the incredible advisors that I have, I’ve been able to build connections to real journalists and receive advice from them about their jobs that have helped direct me to the exact field of journalism I want to go into.”- Social Editor, Brianna Klocke
“My favorite thing about journalism is that we have the ability as journalists to capture moments and stories for people that they want to remember for the rest of their lives.”– Teams and Groups Editor, Mady Brewer
![YEARBOOK STAFF](https://FHNtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_0215-1.jpg)
This year’s yearbook theme is “Just One More Time”. The yearbook staff wants this book to highlight the importance of it being the last year in the building, but they also want to convey to students that the building does not define FHN. It is the community and people that makes North what it is. Currently, the yearbook staff is working to finish the fifth out of their 7 total deadlines. They are also working on finishing the senior ads and people sections. The yearbook staff’s annual group photo day will be coming up soon. This will take place in the big gym. Once this occurs, the staff will be able to work on and finish that section as well. In the background, yearbook editors have been editing pages and have created a social media team to work on promoting selling the book through social media posts on TikTok and Instagram.
“My favorite part about being in our program is all the different types of people I get to meet and eventually become friends with that I never would have talked to outside of staff.”– Yearbook EIC, Lauren Harmon
“Being a leader in this program has helped me grow not only as a journalist but also as a human. Since my junior year I’ve guided all different kinds of people that learn/work differently, so the amount of empathy and patience I’ve gained has set me up for working with the right people in the future.”– Yearbook Managing Editor, Hannah Anderson
“I think what separates Staff hours from the rest of the classes that are offered in school is the fact that we get to have more control and freedom when it comes to assignments. Plus, we are student-led which you don’t see in any other classes.”– Yearbook Sports Editor, Ellenna Forbes
“My favorite part of being in journalism is the people I’ve met. this program has brought me some of my strongest friendships and biggest role models.”– Student Life Editor, Sophia Manzella
“I’ve learned how to be a better designer and lead a team, but also how to communicate with others whether that is from gathering opinions on certain topics or giving and receiving feedback. Through the program I have gained problem solving skills, such as adapting and overcoming challenges within my work to help the program run smoothly.”– Yearbook Theme Editor, Carter Houdeshell
“Being a leader in our student led program is important to me because it gives me an even deeper look into all the work we do as well as allowing me to help and guide others.”– Yearbook Special Sections Editor, Lisa Smyth
“My favorite part of the program is getting to create all the cool yearbook spreads while spending time with the coolest people I know.”– Senior Ads Editor, Sydney Gronemeier
![VIDEO STAFF](https://FHNtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_8681.jpg)
Over the last year on Video staff we’ve been working on making our news show, the Knightly Show, better whether it be working with everything from trying out different camera setups to amping up the script, we’ve trying to get better each episode we put out. As a staff we’ve also been working on creating better news and feature videos as a whole. We’ve also done some fun broadcasting projects throughout the year, like the 12 hour podcast that where we brought on different people throughout the day on a livestream and talked about topics ranging from cultural clubs to Fortnight to UFC.
“Pub is just a really different environment because the whole program’s student run. Everything’s also very collaborative and project based, it’s all like one giant group project.”– Video EIC, Rhea Patel
“Staff hour is so much different from any other class because of the people in it. Everyone in each staff is so friendly to each other and are always having fun together while learning and I think that really differentiates it from any other class.”– Video Game Review Editor, Max Ramirez
“My favorite part about being in publications here at FHN is the community that it has brought me. I have made so many friends and met so many people through my schools publications.”– News and Features Editor, Laney Quandt
![SPORTS STAFF](https://FHNtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IMG_8680.jpg)
Sports staff is the newest of the five staffs and has been the brainchild of a few past and current editors for a few years. This year sport writers, designers and video people all came together from the other four staffs to create one super team of passionate sports fans. We create the hype videos, man on the street and graphics you see on FHNgameday. On that account we reached 1,00o followers early this year. We also implemented the “Cross out the C week” tradition that we have now held for 2 years and hopefully have created a standard for the years to come. As the newest staff we still have a lot of things we are trying to figure out but with all of the cool new equipment we will have at the new school, you better believe the sports staff will have a lot of awesome content dropping next year.
“I value being a leader in journalism because I love helping others reach their potential, especially in something I am also so passionate about.”– Managing Copy Editor, Braeden Kettinger
“Being apart of sports staff is much different than any of my other classes i take, and I truly appreciate sports staff more because of it. The ability to be able to create my own content and do what I want to do makes the class so much fun, and makes the environment more lively as well.”– Video Storytelling Editor, Om Nair
“What separates the staff hours from all my other hours is the community we have and the energy and just the work in general, everyone is so much more themselves and honestly enjoys what they are doing and how they are doing it and just have fun with it and expresses themselves through it.”– Sports Editor, Olivia Graeser
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