Junior Aubrey Winford works in the Journalism Department as part of the social media team. Winford uses her time in journalism to “post on the main AHS Instagram [accounts” and enjoys “posting about everyday lives and about what’s going on in AHS.” Winford’s favorite part about the program is “the friends I get to meet through journalism.”

The Journalism Lab (J-Lab) is the host site of many AHS Journalism productions. Within this room, students are able to collect cameras, take photos, and upload media to post on an AHSNeedle account. The J-Lab is also host to the AHSNeedle broadcasting department, the Eye of the Needle. This room is where the EON team plans and records segments for their weekly videos, as well as post their episodes every Monday.

As a part of the AHS journalism department, students take photos of many events each year. Students within the program are required to take photos of at least one event every nine weeks. However many students go above and beyond this, taking photos at multiple events within the time period.

Photos taken by journalism students are used for a multitude of media outlets. A key outlet these photos are used for is the yearbook created by AHS Journalists each year. Yearbook pages are assigned by Senior Editors and divided among the yearbook journalists. These journalists design and create unique spreads for students to look back on their high school experiences.

AHS journalism standards are modeled by the journalism teacher Allison Berryhill. Berryhill has been teaching journalism for fourteen years, this year being her fifteenth. “I love the process of handing over the reins to a student-driven program as the students progress from their sophomore to senior years,” she said. This year, there are 23 students within the introductory journalism program and 37 editors. Out of the 433 students within the school, 60 of those students are journalism participants, making roughly 14% of the student body a part of the journalism program. Berryhill enjoys teaching the new journalism students because “it’s like watching birds leave the nest and be ready to fly.”

The journalism department takes photos at most events during the school year. Photos can be taken of students in activities, and are able to cover all aspects of each event.

Junior Annabelle Meyer is in her second year of the journalism program. Her favorite part of journalism is “the friendships made with people you don’t normally talk to.” Meyer enjoys taking photos, and has taken photos at school events this year. Meyer is a part of the social media team, and posts a photo each day onto the AHS Journalism accounts. She likes getting photos of “everyday student life,” she said.

Within a student’s first year in the journalism program, they are taught the ethics of journalism and the structure of how to tell a story. Students are also instructed on how to use different outlets the AHS Journalism department uses to share written or recorded media.

New journalist Bailey Grieshaber is excited about how “inclusive the environment is,” within journalism. She has enjoyed “reading over different quotes and articles to see a writer’s style,” she said. Grieshaber wants to be a part of the yearbook or newspaper department following this year because “both of those sound fun.”