For the first time in its history, The Accolade website received the Online Pacemaker award from the National Scholastic Press Association [NSPA] on Saturday, April 18, at the Minnesota Journalism Education Association/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention.
Former Accolade adviser Tommy Li, who attended the convention with two of his children, co-Arts & Entertainment editor senior Serenity and Irvine High School sophomore Curtis Li, from Thursday, April 16 to Saturday, April 18, notified current adviser CJ D’Innocente two days later via text message on Monday, April 20.
“When I saw the text, I immediately felt extremely proud of the work that we put in, and it just felt so amazing to be recognized,” D’Innocente said. “It was a huge validation that The Accolade is still just as strong as it ever was.”
That same day, D’Innocente messaged the results via Slack to senior Aashna Dialani, The Accolade’s web editor-in-chief, who said she was elated and surprised when she first read the news.
“I was a little insecure being the only online editor at first,” Dialani said. “Normally we have two, but this year we had a shared managing position, so I just thought we might have been a bit weaker in that sense, but Lauren really pulled through, and I couldn’t have done it without her, the rest of the staff and, of course, Mr. D’Innocente.”
Senior Lauren Kang, The Accolade’s managing editor, said she felt extremely proud of all of the hard work the staff put into the website after learning about the award through an Instagram post.
“I am so proud that we were able to prove that we could accomplish such an amazing feat despite so many changes this year, and this is a true testament to how dedicated our staff is,” Kang said.
To celebrate, D’Innocente purchased three dozen doughnuts from The Donuttery for the class on Tuesday, April 21.
“We already did a pizza party once for the Gold Crown award, and especially because it was a block schedule day, and we had our class first thing in the morning, I thought doughnuts were a good, fitting celebration for that,” the adviser said.
Co-Opinion editor junior Kyuwon Han said she was happy and proud of The Accolade staff, and she felt every member contributed to the achievement.
“As a writer, I posted and wrote multiple stories for multiple sections, and I also posted comics, which also could have contributed to us winning the Pacemaker,” Han said.
Echoing that sentiment, senior Issac Lee, The Accolade’s video team leader, said it was amazing how every staff member made this accomplishment possible.
“As the video team leader, I think I contributed to the multimedia, but not only me — everyone contributed to the badges,” Lee said. “Everyone put in the work, and everyone did everything on time, and every single person contributed to this award.”
However, the journey to receiving this award was not easy; The Accolade staffers said they faced hardships along the way.
“With the amount of stuff that we were posting, there were a couple of days where we would have a dry spell on the website,” Dialani said. “Encouraging everybody and letting people know that one award can’t be achieved by solely one person helped us get through that.
“It takes a bunch of people to make that possible, and what we’re doing right now is pretty historic, so I think everyone should bask in that achievement.”
Co-graphics editor junior Joanna Joo, who helps post three comic strips a week, said meeting deadlines was a major challenge in contributing to the website.
“Keeping up with deadlines was difficult at times, but what kept me going forward was just my want to keep my fellow Accoladians proud and get these stories up because I know the whole staff is waiting on me and we’re all waiting on each other,” Joo said.
THE NEXT STEPS
Although the staff is celebrating their hard-earned accomplishment, many still acknowledge there is room for improvement.
“There’s always room for improvement in everything that we do for our website,” Co-copy editor sophomore Kaylynn Park said. “For example, I feel like we barely post on our Korean section, and it’s really hard because we don’t have many fluent writers, except for maybe one or two, so just adding to sections that might be a bit ignored can improve our online website.”
One of D’Innocente’s goals for the future is to do more short-form, reel-style videos, he said.
“I think journalism as a whole is kind of trending to be a more visual medium,” the adviser said. “Part of it is upgrading our social media presence, but also doing more video content on the website as well; that’s kind of an unexplored area.”
For future The Accolade members, Dialani said the most important thing to keep in mind when working toward an award is persistence.
“Just keep doing what we’re doing,” she said. “Don’t let your work ethic waver because whether or not you are the best writer, your work ethic is going to get you farther than your capabilities as a writer, and I think that’s why we’ve gotten to where we’ve gotten.”
