The Oarsman, which is celebrating over 100 years at Venice High School, was selected among the top 55 high school newspapers in the country by the National Scholastic Press Association.
This is the first time that the Venice paper has made the finalist list. Nancy Zubiri, who worked for several California newspapers before becoming a teacher at Venice High, has been helping students run the newspaper for the last 13 years.
The editors-in-chief of The Oarsman were students Michael Cheung and Maya Troeger. The managing editor was Mitchell Handler, who is now studying journalism at UC Berkeley.
The contest has been awarding high school newspapers for the last 85 years, and this year was made possible by generous contributions from the staff at The Sacramento Bee, who also judged this year’s contest.
Categories include type of coverage, quality of writing and reporting, leadership on the opinion page, evidence of in-depth reporting, design and photography.
Winners will be announced at the NSPA convention on Nov. 17 in San Antonio, Texas.
