With 138 published pieces, the Wahawk Insider is wrapping up their second school year running. This year, the Insider team is a SNO distinguished site and an IHSPA news team finalist for the second year. The Insider team has also had four ‘Best of SNO’ submissions that were accepted.
When looking back on the 138 published pieces, the largest covered category this year was features, with 39 pieces. After that, we have news with 35, sports with 34, opinion with 32, Arts and Entertainment with 23, as well as 12 podcasts and 6 videos. In total, the insider team wrote 78,599 words this year.
The Wahawk Insider, along with the yearbook staff, took a total of 136,058 photos, as opposed to the 98,546 that were taken last year.
Regarding awards, the Wahawk Insider staff’s work has truly paid off this year, as they are both an IHSPA news team finalist and are a SNO distinguished site. Being a SNO distinguished site means that we have earned all of our badges; best of SNO, audience engagement, multimedia, story page excellence, continuous coverage and site excellence. Even though sometimes it was difficult, the team this year worked together extraordinarily well, allowing them to overcome the obstacles quickly and easily.
Since last year, one of the long-term goals for the Wahawk Insider has been to become an IHSPA news team finalist, which they have now accomplished two years in a row, last year bringing home the banner for All Iowa News Team of the Year. To explain the IHSPA, or the Iowa High School Press Association, a group that judges all of the high school publications in Iowa based on skill, provided the opportunity to compete with other schools to be a news team finalist.
One of the newest achievements of the Wahawk Insider is the addition of the Quarterly News Magazines! These showcase not only some of the works on the webpage but also some original works that were not digitally published throughout the year.
This year, the Insider staff consisted of 19 members, with 16 during the first semester and 15 during the second. The team is slowly picking up speed as more students are becoming involved with the program.
As the years go on, Wahawk Insider hopes to continue their successful climb towards many more achievements, while still making plenty of memories along the way.
