Taft Newpaper Review

    Taft High Schools' issue 6 of the "Taft Today" was much better than the last issue we reviewed. This issue seemed far more organized and the layout was much more appealing to the reader. Although I still believe that things like bolding proper nouns in every article and rounding off the edges of photos are weird elements to include in a newspaper, it is a stylistic preference and their editors will probably continue to keep them. Still, I thought this issue of the "Taft Today" had better written and more interesting articles than the previous issue. I liked that their sports page included articles that weren't solely based on the outcome of different teams' games such as the profile on one of Taft's gym teachers Mr. Madden and the article on dance at Taft. I also think that Taft's masthead could be better. The white font in front of a picture of their school is a little basic, however, I do like that the masthead also includes previews of other pages in the paper with pictures. Overall, I still have mixed feelings about the "Taft Today" paper. This issue was definitely an improvement from the last paper we reviewed by them, however I think that there are still several things we do better in "The Beacon" than they do in the "Taft Today."

Bacon Review

I think the Bacon issue of our newspaper was the best paper that we have printed so far this year. Even though this was the satire issue, overall the layout, pictures, and stories were the better than any other paper we have produced so far. In the entire issue, there were only three pictures that weren't taken or created by one of our staff members which is a huge improvement from the last paper we put out. I have to give huge props to Claire for photoshopping pictures for four different articles because it really enhanced the overall quality of our Bacon issue. Another big improvement that I saw in this issue from our past papers was how clean and professional the Bacon looked. Now that all of the editors have experience using InDesign and creating the paper, I saw far fewer mistakes in the layout of our issue. There were no random boxes around parts of articles, inconsistent fonts on the same page, or other mistakes that we used to make.

Besides all of the technical improvements that we made in this issue, I also thought that we did a great job appealing to a wide range of students, faculty, and other readers of the Bacon. Our stories included quotes and pictures of people from different grades and departments which got even more people talking about the issue. The stories were also interesting, funny, and caught people's attention when they read the headlines. I especially think all of our headlines helped to "hook" our readers and make them actually read our articles. For example, Billy's article titled, "The war on jeans raises parental concerns," with Mr. Fanning in the picture, looks and sounds interesting/crazy so people stop to read the article. I was also very proud of my article which was called, "Get a leg up on your dance moves," because I think my pictures did a great job getting the attention of students and making them want to show the Bacon to their friends.

One thing that I would want to improve about this issue for next year would be to change the header of the Bacon. I think that the current header is ok, but just a little too dark and outdated. I think a more bright and "bacony" header would be more fun and still look good. I also think we should work harder fill the entire space that our articles are slotted for. For example, nine out of seventeen of the stories in the Bacon had at least one or two lines of white space leftover at the end of the article. We also had several spelling errors including misspelling the word "Check" as "Chcek" on the front page. Still, minor details like that don't take away from the paper at all and I think that as a whole this issue was extremely successful.

Stories

Student group suspected of committing arson from 'feeling the Bern'

• Picture- The picture was photoshopped well, I especially like the shadow of someone (the arsonist?) standing out of the frame.
• Headline- The headline is good, however there is a little bit of white space leftover and the word feeling in "Feeling the Bern could be capitalized"
• Overall quality- This article made great use of quotes that were realistic, but still funny and clearly satirical.

FOWY spends entire budget, installs bars on windows

• Picture- The picture is photoshopped as best as we could've made it, however the image is a little dark.
• Headline- There is some white space at the end of the headline; perhaps we could've written the headline as "FOWY spends entire budget to install bars on windows" to get rid of that space.
• Overall quality-

Hallway Patrol cast and crew apprehended for impersonating police officers; $50,000 bond set

• Picture- The photoshop job was excellent and faces/mugshots were very funny.
• Headline- The headline is a little long, but it takes up a lot of space. There is also a little white space in the upper right hand corner of the headline.
• Overall Quality- The article itself was pretty funny, but there were a couple mistakes in it. In the first paragraph the number "2" should be spelled out as two to fit AP style. Also in the line, "... which follows the jobs of two high school police officers, Officer Winkle and Officer Dinkle," the comma should be replaced with a colon.

Ted Cruz revealed as Kevin

• Picture- I thought this picture was very successful. I had never noticed how similar the actor who plays Kevin from the office and Ted Cruz looked. However, I didn't like that the caption under the picture says "Courtesy of Google Images." Google images is not the actual source of those photos!
• Headline- The headline was funny and quick to the point, which I liked, but there was some white space at the end of it.
• Overall Quality- The first sentence of this article is very jumbled and confusing. I don't think there should've been a comma after the word candidates, but it is also just a very awkward sentence.

AP fees stir violent reactions

• Picture- N/a
• Headline- The headline is kind of obscure. It doesn't really let the reader know what the article is about other than the fact that it mentions AP fees.
• Overall Quality- This article was very comical because it is extremely relatable to WY's student body. The name of the writer's

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

• Picture-N/a
• Headline- I thought the spacing for this headline was pretty good, but it could've been shifted down a little bit so that there was an even amount of white space on the top and bottom of the headline instead of it all being on the bottom.
• Overall Quality- Both the "Chicken" and "Egg" sides to this article were funny however both had white space at the bottom of the articles. The "Egg" article particularly had a lot of leftover white space. In the "Chicken" article, however, the last sentence in the fourth paragraph accidentally has two commas next to each other instead of just one being there.

Five by Five

• Picture- I thought that the five by five pictures were funny. Most people had funny expressions or the camera took the picture from an angle that made it funny.
• Headline- N/a
• Overall Quality- I thought that this five by five could've been a little better. I think the two questions "Who is your celebrity crush?" and "Who you gonna call?" weren't funny because we decided to make everyone give the same answers. There could've been funnier responses to those questions.

Who wore it better?

• Picture- The pictures themselves were pretty good, but I wish that they were the same size and that they were spaced better, There is a lot of white space around the pictures and the article itself and the captions of the photos don't line up with each other.
• Headline- I like that the headline of this article was a different font because it was a fun break from the standard newspaper look.
• Overall Quality- This article was okay, however, I thought that the sassy tone/voice in the article was overplayed a little bit. In the article the author wrote, "Pictured (from left to right) is Jacob Kayser 17', Jacob Shariq 17' and Kayla Wade 16'." In this quote, the apostrophes should be placed in front of the year (ex. '17) instead of behind it and there is also a missing comma after listing "Jacob Shariq 17'" in the sentence.

Summer Vacay Cancelled?!?! CPS Budget cuts to thank

• Picture- I did not like the pictures for this article because they were taken from google images, credited that way, (instead of citing the actual source), and the picture of the man is left un-captioned. I don't know who the person is in the picture so it should be captioned and using a clip art image just  looks unprofessional in my opinion.
• Headline- This headline was okay, but there is white space left at the end of it. The words "Vacay," "Cancelled," and "Budget" shouldn't be capitalized.
• Overall Quality- This article was very confusing to me because I can't tell what the "VE program" really is and I didn't find it very funny.

Hot Spot

• Picture- This picture was good
• Headline- N/a because it was the usual hot spot headline. I like the use of a different font on this page again.
• Overall Quality- I liked this article because it was short and sweet. From the very beginning of this article, readers can tell what this article is going to be about because of the headline and picture alone so keeping this article short with a few extra jokes thrown into it made it successful in my mind.

Fashion Icon

• Picture- I was not that big of a fan of the pictures used in the fashion icon. I thought that it was kind of weird to have Mr. Rehak be the fashion icon, but I thought that we should've at least planned ahead enough to have three different outfits/looks for him to wear. I don't like that Mr. Rehak is wearing the same sweater in each photo with the same accessories just rearranged differently because it looks like we didn't put any effort into the article. Even though we may not want to put a student in as the fashion icon so that nobody's feelings are hurt, I think maybe we should find a student willing to participate or include a different story to put in the paper.
• Headline- N/a
• Overall Quality- This article was okay, however several paragraphs mention Mr. Rehak's infamous red scarf as his favorite accessory, his go-to outfit, etc., however, he doesn't wear the red scarf in any of the pictures. There is also a typo in the question, "Do you own anything by then?" The word "then" should be replaced with "them."

Teachers: They're Just Like Us!

• Picture- The pictures for this article are great. I like that they each have their own joke to them. The only picture I didn't really understand was the one of Mr. Katz saying, "They fight for justice!" but it didn't really take away from the article.
• Headline- This headline was pretty funny, but should've been slightly bigger to take up more space.
• Overall Quality- N/a

Classifieds

• Pictures- N/a
• Headline- I liked the use of a different font. It distinguishes the classifieds as different and separate from the other articles.
• Overall Quality- I thought all of the classifieds were really funny. My favorite one was the ad for a fake school I.D. However, the phrase "NEED FAKE PARENT TO SIGN ME OUT OF CLASS" should've been in bold to fit the layout of the other two ads.

Athlete Spotlight

• Picture- The picture for this article was hilarious. This was another great photoshop job by Claire.
• Headline- There was too much white space leftover after this headline.
• Overall Quality- This article was pretty funny because most people know Claire and know that she is not the athletic type. However, if you didn't know Claire this article was probably a lot less funny to read.

Acadec team develops training routine

• Picture- I thought that this photo was pretty funny and I like that it included an Acadec team member, but it is very dark which makes it hard to see the pens in the team members hands.
• Headline- This headline was alright, but there was a decent amount of white space left beside it.
• Overall Quality- I liked this article a lot because it was very detailed. It included a lot of Acadec team members in it and played on the joke that they train like a sports team well.

Kash cashes in with Nike sponsorship

• Picture-N/a
• Headline- I think this headline is great because it has a play on words, but also fills up the space it needs to fill.
• Overall Quality-This article was funny and did a good job including real people from Nike and our school. I liked the joke about King James and Queen Kash because it is a joke about the sponsorship, but also uses chess piece names.

Get a leg up on your dance moves

• Picture- I was really proud of the way my pictures turned out. I thought they were all very funny and a lot of WY students came up to me after seeing the article either telling me to hit the leg dab or saying that my article was funny.
• Headline- I think the headline is great and I'm thankful to Tatiana (or whoever came up with it) because it is much better than my original headline. If it could be a little longer to get rid of the white space at the end that'd be great, but overall it's pretty good.
• Overall Quality- The only mistake I found in my article was that a hyphen made up of two dashes ("--") should've been replaced with the actual longer single dash hyphen ("―"). Also some of my paragraphs look like they were indented twice on accident so the formatting on those could've been fixed.

The war on jeans raises parental concerns

• Picture- The picture is very funny because Mr. Fanning is wearing the exact type of jeans Billy is describing. It is a little dark, but you are still able to make out the look of the jeans so it works.
• Headline- The headline for this article is a little confusing, but I have no idea what I would've headlined this article so it is probably as good as we could get it. There is, however, a lot of white space remaining beside the headline.
• Overall Quality- I thought that this article was actually hilarious, however I thought it was a little weird that Billy referred to moms and dads together as "the elderly" several times. Still, it kind of added to the humor of the article and I thought it was a success overall.

Installation statue is actual student

• Picture- N/a
• Headline- The headline for this article was okay. I didn't feel hooked by it, but it wasn't bad and the spacing for it worked out so that there was little white space left over.
• Overall Quality- This article was very funny and successful in my opinion because of its use of quotes. The progression throughout the article of quotes from Jerry Hack's friends to the school nurses to Dr. Kenner all work together to string together one joke which I thought was clever.

Random Mistakes

Page 1

• In the previews of the rest of the paper at the bottom of the page "Check" is misspelled "Chcek."

Hancock High School Newspaper Review

Hancock High School's "The Signature" was a very odd newspaper compared to the other papers that I have seen so far. Although their paper was eight pages in total, the content of "The Signature" seemed much more shallow and less varied than our paper typically is. There were no official sections that separated their articles ion each page, but rather articles seemed to be simply placed one after another in a row of pages. There was very little organization and that, combined with the layout the editors came up with, made for a very confusing paper. The one part of the paper that was "organized," was the section titled "Whatchoo got to day?" However, even where there was supposed to be some sort of organization and order, the Hancock editors made their layout extremely confusing. This section stretched out onto four out of eight pages of "The Signature" and changed titles twice from "Whatchoo Got to Say?" to "More of Whatchoo Got to Say" to "Whatchoo Said." The lack of consistency, in addition to placing this section onto four pages, was very weird and didn't really make sense to me. In fact, three out of the four other articles not in the "Whatchoo Got to Say" category ran onto multiple pages. The article titled, "Can Anyone Be a Leader?," which ran onto three pages, also changed its title on a different page to just "Leaders" and even switched which side of the paper it was on. Overall I thought that the layout really took away from this paper and made it less interesting and more confusing.

Although the format of "The Signature" was bad, the thought behind the articles was a little better. I thought the "Humans of Hancock" piece and the "College Is Not for Everyone" article were both interesting and relevant to their audience. However, a lot of the journalistic fundamentals that Mr. Rehak has been teaching us all year were still missing in those pieces. Simple things such as forgetting to end a quote with a second quotation mark, missing the year or position of a staff member, and other grammar mistakes were prevalent in these articles. The best feature of "The Signature" was its use of pictures and specifically the fact that it had only original pictures taken by the paper's staff members. Although I think "The Beacon" is probably a better paper overall than "The Signature," I don't know if we've ever put out a paper that has done that in the last two years.

Taft Newspaper Review

Taft High School's newspaper, "Taft Today," was my least favorite newspaper that we have reviewed so far. I thought that the issue Taft sent to us was a very average paper compared to other school's papers we have seen and far below the standards of "The Beacon." While flipping through the pages of "Taft Today," I was most bothered by the layout and design of each page. Although Taft didn't use any online pictures or pictures taken by people outside of their newspaper staff, they overused graphics and drawings in their paper that made their paper look less polished and professional. Additionally, I thought the font choices, picture placement, and color scheme were poorly chosen and lowered the quality of the paper. I especially disliked the fact that in every article, any and every pronoun was bolded so that it stood out darker than the rest of the text around it. That decision doesn't really make sense to me and, again, reduces the quality of the paper as a whole. My least favorite part of the "Taft Today," however, was the comic on page eight. I thought that the comic used a very basic and unoriginal form of humor. Although some people might criticize Billy's "Casheu Jones" for using the same silly or "stupid" joke in each new comic, every time the joke is reused it becomes funnier and funnier. I didn't see any kind of originality that made the comic in Taft's paper funny or interesting and so I didn't enjoy reading it. Overall, I did not enjoy the "Taft Today" newspaper and I think that as a staff we are thoughtful enough not to make the decisions (mistakes) that Taft's newspaper staff made.

Jones Newspaper Review

Overall, I think that Jones' "Blueprint" was a strong newspaper in terms quality of writing, however, I thought this one of the weaker newspapers we have reviewed so far with regards to layout, organization, and presentation. Although I can see how others might enjoy the overall presentation of the "Blueprint," I did not like many of the choices that the editors made about the "look" of the paper. One of the things I didn't like about the "Blueprint" was that all of the stories were organized into only four sections: opinions, sports, school, and lifestyle. I feel as though these categories are too general for the range of articles newspapers usually publish and that our selection of news, sports, arts and trends, student life, features, and opinions does a much better job organizing our newspaper. Another issue that I had with the "Blueprint" was that many of their articles were too long for a high school audience, or at least the students at WY. Although the "Blueprint" included several well-written and thorough articles, some of those pieces took up an entire page or the majority of a page on their own. For example, the article on page 4 titled, "Cultural Clash: Explaining Cultural Appropriation," literally took up the entirety of that page. As a high school student, when I see a wall of text that big in a school newspaper, I usually won't even bother to try and read that article because I know I won't finish it. Similarly, I thought the other two "Lifestyles" articles on page 5 and the  front page article were also too long for the intended audience. Lastly, I did not enjoy the header of the "Blueprint." I think that the header design looks as though someone simply drew the word "Blueprint" in pen using bubble letters and then sloppily colored it in. I think that the designs people can make using an actual design software like Photoshop look much more polished and professional than the header Jones' newspaper staff created.

February Issue Beacon Review

The February issue of the Beacon was the best newspaper that we have put together all year. I'm glad that as the year has progressed, our issues have seemed to steadily increase in quality, however, with each issue it seems a new problem presents itself. For this issue, that problem was our overuse of graphics and pictures from the Internet and our lack in consistency in sourcing those graphics and pictures. Our different forms of sourcing these photos both from the Internet as well as our own staff members was my least favorite part of this issue by far because it was extremely obvious and inconsistent. Different forms of sourcing photos from outside sources ranged from sentences such as "All picture courtesy of pitchfork.com" to simply "Google Images." I think simply saying "Google Images" is an extremely unprofessional way to give credit for a photo because it really isn't giving credit to anybody. We should at least be able find the website that the photo came from and give credit to that site. Additionally, we were inconsistent in crediting our own staff members for taking photos. On the front page under the picture for the first article we have, "Claire Bentley/ Staff Photographer" and on the last page for the hotspot article picture we wrote, "Photo courtesy of Billy Roche '16." Small inconsistencies like this are the things that keep our paper from moving from good to great.  Granted, we've never been told exactly how we should source a photo or graphic in the Beacon, and I myself didn't think twice about it when I wrote, "Photo courtesy of www.allys-allies.com," the editors should communicate more with each other to avoid problems like these. The good news is that this issue is extremely easily fixable. Moving forward we should simply establish a clear, definite way to give credit for our photos. 

Besides the inconsistent sourcing of our photos, however, I really enjoyed this issue of the Beacon. All of the editors deserve props for their pages in this issue because each one was extremely thought out and it showed. I was personally extremely proud of the way the Sports page ended up coming together, but my next second most favorite pages were the Opinions page and the Features page. I thought that the Teacher's Matchmaking Guide was a clever and fun theme for this issue's Features page and was definitely one of the most interesting pages in the paper. The match-ups and answers were funny and unexpected and I think everyone reading this issue enjoyed seeing which teachers got paired with each other. I also thought that the Opinions page was successful because it had a wide range of different and interesting topics. Phoebe's Heard in the Halls article was funny and entertaining, Maia and Tatiana's articles were political and interesting, and the versus articles by Katherine and Luke were relevant to WY students. The mixture of different types of articles all came together in an aesthetically pleasing page and simply worked together. Finally, I loved the new Beacon header that Peter created for this issue. I think that it's really cool to create a header that is unique to our specific Beacon class. Although it was a little stretched out and pixelated, the header still looked nice and I don't think that touching it up or resizing it for our next issue will be too hard. 

Boys Bowling Article Draft

The WY boys bowling team’s season ended on January 23, 2016, after participating in the sectionals state-qualifier tournament. Although they didn’t place high enough in the sectional competition to advance to the final state series, the Dolphins had a good season, and finished in 13th place at sectionals.

Although the WY Boys Bowling team season was over, one dolphin, Jace Miyagi ‘16, competed as an individual at the sectionals state-qualifier competition and finished in 17th place out of 168 competitors in the individuals tournament. Although Miyagi competes as a part of the team during the regular season, he competes individually outside of high school bowling and decided to compete that way for the sectional and state tournament. In the end, Miyagi knocked down a total of 1,272 pins over six games at the sectionals tournament and advanced to compete in the state finals competition.The finals took place on Friday, January 29 and Saturday, January 30, 2016. 

After the state finals, Miyagi commented, “I was somewhat nervous going into the tournament, since it was my first year qualifying for state, but I’ve come to know other bowlers who do not attend WY that were also participating in the tournament, so their presence eased the tension.” Over the course of the two days, Miyagi bowled four rounds, each round with three games in it. At the end of the tournament, Miyagi knocked down a total of 2,611 pins in the 12 games and finished in 44th place at the state tournament. Miyagi said, “I am very pleased with my performance. I bowled around average which is respectable due to the hectic, high pressure environment and long tournament format.” Miyagi will continue his bowling career as a part of Purdue University’s collegiate program.