This year, AHS Journalism has won another SNO award, which is the award a site gets for having all six media coverage badges. Those badges include; Multimedia, Coverage, Site Excellence, Best of SNO, Audience Engagement, and Story Page Excellence. Having met the requirements, it earned us the Distinguished Site Award. Winning another SNO was truly a milestone for the AHS Journalism team. 

Last year, AHS was the 25th school nation to get it, and the year before that AHS was the 42nd. This year, AHS was the 10th school to receive the award. Dakota Oswalt, one of the AHS Needle Lead Editors, said, “The difference this year is that we were able to get it during the first semester which has never been done before. Usually, we don’t get it until spring so it was exciting to get it before that.” 

It didn’t come without some tough work though. Meeting all of the six requirements has been a journey. Elizabeth Anderson, the other AHS Needle Lead Editor, said, “Continuous Coverage is where you have to post four stories each for four weeks about different topics. (Fine Arts, Sports, Opinion, School News), you have to have a developing story, and you need a multi-story.” There is also Story Excellence Badge where each story has to have different layouts and formats. The Site Excellence Badge is editing the appearance of the site, and the Audience Engagement Badge required posts on all AHS Needle social media accounts for two weeks consecutively. 

The Intro to Journalism students helped the AHS Needle a lot with the Continuous Coverage goal with their first round of stories. Site Excellence was handled by Anderson; she designed the website to “look more original to us.” The Best of SNO Badge was an award won by Eleanor McCalla for writing an outstanding story. This award was also won by Oswalt later on in the year. The Audience Engagement Badge was handled by AHS Journalism Business Manager Nina Welter. She posted on all of our social media sights for a full 30 days in order for us to receive that badge. Story Page Excellence badge was most likely the easiest to receive, as “we just needed to post different stories with various formats,” said Anderson.

Oswalt had the idea to be distinguished by the first semester, an idea she and Anderson “thought it would be impossible,” but they ended up doing just that. Anderson said, “I’m so proud of our team and what they have accomplished. We have such a good team that is willing to work hard for their goals. I’m so thankful for everyone that helped us get these badges.” It’s safe to say that the whole Journalism team is proud of what has been accomplished, and what teamwork and dedication can do. The AHS Needle team hopes to earn another SNO Distinguished Site next year.