On Friday, Nov. 14th, several students from Amador Valley Journalism showcased their journalistic talent when competing with high school journalists from across the nation in the annual Fall JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention. Students competed and won awards in the Online News Package, Broadcast Package, and the Literary Magazine: Poetry categories.
“I’m so proud of all of our students. They competed against over a thousand of the top journalism students in the country. And for them to come back and win the awards they did shows their dedication to working hard and excelling in a field that has so much potential,” said AV Journalism Advisor Wendy Connelly.
Students competed either individually or in teams of up to three. Competitions ran anywhere from two to eight hours and could begin as early as 8:30 a.m.
Among all the students who competed, Aiden Perez (‘26) and Gabe Hernandez (‘26) earned a “Superior” rating in the Broadcast Package. Aakanksha Balachander (‘26), Alyssa Vu (‘26), and Amelia Tsao (‘26) scored an “Excellent” rating for their collaborative work on the Online News Package, while Sarina Lashkarian (‘28) also achieved an “Excellent” rating for her individual work in the Literary Magazine: Poetry category. A full list of the ranking can be found here.
“We did our project on the Delta River, which is like this mini town and river inside the hotel. We came up with the idea of doing [our Broadcast Package] on how the Delta River area was maintained. We got an interview with the people who were on the boat ride. We asked them how they clean it, how they keep it all maintained, stuff like that. Then we got an interview with a janitor. And then they show us how all the janitor team works together and communicates and stuff like that,” said Perez.
Finding flow through teamwork
Whether working solo or collaborating with peers, the competition participants quickly learned to lean into their strengths, choosing tasks that best matched their skills and interests.
“My biggest takeaway was learning how much faster things go when it’s very collaborative. During the editing process, I was the main one editing, but I told my partner Gabe to go through all the 77 clips of B-roll and just name all of them, so I can know what they are from when I download them on my computer and put them on. While he was doing that, I was cutting up the interviews to make sure they’re small enough and concise. Working together really helped speed up the process,” said Perez.
Scientifically, working together under pressure reduces stress due to social support, a shared responsibility, and the availability of diverse strengths, perspectives, and expertise. Balachander, Vu, and Tsao experienced similar benefits of working together in the Online News Package.
“Everyone was skilled in something, and so we were able to dedicate our time because we had three hours. We were locked in a room for three hours, and then we basically had to finish our entire online package then. And all of us had something to do. We split up the jobs. The best part was that everyone was able to do something because they knew how to do it, and that was a lot of help,” said Tsao.
As part of the Online News Package, the three were tasked with creating a multimedia project on the Soundwaves theme park in the Convention Center/hotel, the Gaylord Opryland Resort. They decided to write a news article, create a video segment as well as an Instagram post.
A chance to try more
Beyond discovering how they perform under pressure and gaining valuable team experience, participants were excited to take part in an opportunity they wouldn’t normally have access to on the Amador campus.
“My biggest takeaway would probably just be being able to do something that I normally would not be able to do, obviously, because we don’t have anything like this type of stuff around Amador. A lot of the stuff that we do are mainly like on campus activities. And so being able to film a segment completely from scratch and having to think about what B-roll to use, what interview questions, and what our theme is going to be for our story is my biggest takeaway,” said Tsao.
Similarly, Lashkarian was drawn to the Literary Magazine: Poetry category for the chance to explore a unique genre that is less commonly emphasized at school.“Poetry has always been something super interesting to me, and we don’t really have a lot of places where we can practice that on campus. And it also said Literary Magazine and I was like, oh, we don’t have that, like, it’s not something accessible to us either. So I just wanted to try it out and it seemed super fun,” said Lashkarian.
