On Mar. 14, 10 members of the Panther Prowler staff competed in the SoCal Journalism Education Association [JEA] state competition, going against 29 schools and participating in articles, photography and page design layout competitions in Studio City, Los Angeles, hosted by Harvard Westlake School.
Ellie Hardman, Back Cover Editor, competed with Athena Xilas, DPS Editor, in the yearbook layout category. “This experience taught me to be adaptable and was a good reminder that much of time-dependent publications are subject to change at any time. The program that me and my partner [Xilas] intended to use did not launch properly, so we started 20 minutes late using a different program. It was difficult, but it made the accomplishment feel more meaningful,” Hardman said.
Jasmine Zhang, Co-Editor-in-Chief, placed 4th place in sports writing, and her unique approach to sports articles is what supported her win. “I don’t write sports articles very often, but I like to treat them like features which I do enjoy writing more frequently. Approaching sports articles as features helps me ask the presenters at competitions questions that feel more specific and personalized to get their unique story,” Zhang said.
Competitions like these allow not only Zhang to find her strengths, but also how much she can accomplish in such little time. “Doing these write-offs have really shown me how productive you can actually be in one hour. Maybe it’s the stress that motivates me but whenever I’m taking way too long to do a task I try to think about the time I wrote a 400 something word article in under an hour,” Zhang said.
Zoe Blumfield, Sports Editor placed 3rd placed in newspaper layout, finds that competitions like these allows her to share the accomplishment with the entire staff, “I feel like seeing the success of your other staff members is really good and even if you don’t win, seeing everyone else brings us closer and it makes us more optimistic for the future,” Blumfield said.