Janelle Lim

The annual State Media Competition hosted by SCJEA offered student journalists an opportunity to test their skills and learn new ones along the way. The competition opened with an orientation giving a warm welcome to all of the student journalists from various school across Southern California.

On Saturday, April 6, six of the Bulldog Times staff, including editors had the honor of competing in the Student Media Contest hosted by the Southern California Journalism Education Association (SCJEA) at California State Long Beach. The competition categories ranged from news writing, sports writing, opinion writing, and feature writing for those who participated and placed in the regional competition. For those who did not place or participate, there were several other categories to choose from including novice news, editorial cartooning, and critical review. 

SCJEA’s purpose is to support and foster excellence of instruction in educational journalism, including newspapers, yearbooks, and mass media. The organization prides itself on standing for more recognition for students who work in journalism. 

Within all of the expansive categories, the staff members competed in the following: news writing, sports writing, novice news, editorial cartooning, and critical review. 

The news writing, novice news, and editorial cartooning competitions listened to a guest speaker discuss the First Amendment rights and how it applies especially to journalism. The speaker specifically emphasized the importance of recognizing censorship and when it applies to different student publications. Student journalists then wrote their respective competition category articles within two hours before judging began. 

“We don’t really do a lot of timed writing in journalism so it really focused on honing in on time management skills,” Bulldog Times News and Features Editor Madeline Khoo (11) said. “I think it helped me sharpen all of my writing skills as a journalist.”

As for editorial cartooning, the students were expected to design and draw an illustration representing the key points that the speaker discussed. These kinds of illustrations are often used as either the cover or an image to help enhance readers’ experience when reading the article. 

“I’ve never done editorial cartooning before so it was new to me, but it was fun and a good learning lesson,” Bulldog Times Visual Editor Elisabeth Lee (10) said. 

Similarly, in sports writing there was also a guest speaker who discussed their experience as a student athlete throughout high school and college. The same rules applied to this category, and the writing style was similar news in the reporting aspect, but the topic allowed for more freedom for the writers.

“I think it was really fun,” Bulldog Times Assistant Sports Editor Kaylani Hsu (9) said. “I got to learn to write under pressure and the keynote speaker was very intelligent. I feel like I learned a lot from him, both his story and writing.” 

Critical review was quite different from the other categories as it required students to test a product, which in this case were baked treats from the Starry Lane Bakery. The bakery specializes in creating treats that are completely free from the top ten allergens. Students each tasted a special treat and were given background information about the bakery as well as the founders, and were expected to write an article critiquing or praising the bakery. 

Of the six staff who attended, the Bulldog Times was able to bring home five awards. In news writing, Madeline Khoo received 10th place. In sports writing, Kaylani Hsu received 2nd place and Avery Rosas received 4th place. In novice news, Jiaying Hou received 1st place. In critical review, Janelle Lim received 9th place.

“I definitely think that our entire journalism class next year can hopefully participate in the competitions,” Khoo said. “It was a valuable experience and it would help train our writers and help them realize their true capabilities as student journalists.”