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.