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Review Wins Best of Show

As the school year wraps up, the Review continues to be recognized as one of the premier student journalism programs by the NSPA and CSPA, the two most prestigious student journalism organizations in the country. Reporting for the past year in the age of COVID-19, the Review has adapted in order to keep the community informed about important news and issues.

Best of Show Milestone
The Journalism Education Association and the National Scholastic Press Association awarded the March issue of the Review first place in Best of Show for all tabloid newspapers 17 pages or more during their virtual awards ceremony on April 10. Although the Review has placed in the top 10 numerous times over the past decade—including sixth place in the fall competition and winning Best of Show in the Special Edition category for the Hurricane Harvey issue in 2017—this is the first time for the print edition to take the top prize. 

The cover story from the March issue, “Seen But Not Heard,” written by editor-in-chief Noura Jabir and features editor Ella West, received a first place Best of Show for social justice reporting and 10th place for newspaper design by design editor Celine Huang. 

Huang also won a first place Best of Show for her critique “Mulan 2020: What happened to the original plot of the movie?”

Other Best of Show awards went to photographer Lexi Guo for her underwater swim photo “Stroke” (7th place) and Ella West for editorial leadership (10th place). The Review Online received 10th place as Best Small School Website, and the online editorial staff won sixth place for the digital package “The Perpetual Pandemic.” 
 
Online Has Big Year
The NSPA named the Review an Online Pacemaker Finalist for just the third time in the website’s 10-year history.

In March, the Review was one of just 16 schools to receive a Gold Crown Award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association in Hybrid News, a recognition of the exceptional work done in both the print edition and the Review Online, led by editors-in-chief Laney Chang and Fareen Dhuka. 

The Review has been named a Crown Finalist for the past eight years, winning gold three times. 

And in December, on the final day of the fall semester, the Review Online was named a Distinguished Site by School Newspapers Online for the fourth straight year. 
 
Individual Awards Galore
In March, Ella West won a first place Sweepstakes Award from Quill and Scroll, an international high school honor society, in the Political Writing category for her article about the congressional campaign between St. John's graduates Lizzie Fletcher and Wesley Hunt. Receiving honorable mention awards were editor-in-chief Abigail Poag (Feature Writing), news editor Julia Smith (News Writing), design editor Celine Huang (Review Writing) and sports editor Russell Li (Sports Game Coverage).   

In February, NSPA announced the winners from the inaugural semester of their Clips & Clicks contest, honoring the best work from the fall semester. The Review tallied 45 points in the sweepstakes categories, which will be added to the spring results later this year in order to determine the overall school winner. 

Ella West wrote or co-wrote four winning Clips & Clicks entries including first place for best sports story with Ellie Monday, fourth place in opinion writing, fifth place in news writing with copy editor Max Beard, and honorable mention for news writing with Noura Jabir. 

Editor-in-chief Grace Randall won second place for front page design for the November 2020 issue and third place in photography for her photo of a 30-foot limb that fell onto the Quad. 

New Editors, Adviser Named
Even though the school year is not yet over, editors for the 2021-2022 school year have been named, and they have begun assuming their new positions on the graduation issue. 

Editors-in-chief for the website are Megan Chang and Ashley Yen. 

Print editors-in-chief are Celine Huang, Russell Li and Ella West. Executive editors are Ella Chen, copy chief; Indrani Maitra, content editor, and Afraaz Malick, managing editor.

Online section editors are Dawson Chang and Ella Piper Claffy.

Print assignments editors are Wilson Bailey, Cameron Ederle and Ellie Monday.

Copy editors are Abigail Hindman, Mia Hong, Annie Jones and Lillian Poag. 

Photo editor is Sarah Clark, and online photo and video editor is Lexi Guo.

Alice Xu was named assistant design editor, and Sophia Jazaeri takes over as business manager.  

After spending her first year at St. John’s helping advise the Quadrangle yearbook, Sorrel Westbrook will switch publications, joining advisers David Nathan and Shelley Stein on the Review. Before coming to Houston, Westbrook was an adviser for the Razor and Hilltopper newspapers at Hopkins School and has written for the Daily Nutmeg, all in New Haven, Connecticut. 
 
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