Viator Voice Journalists on Deadline — at State

“It was a 13-school competition in which we were the only Catholic school and the smallest,” said Mr. Chris Paolelli, English Department chair and newspaper advisor. “Our fearless gladiators stepped up and stunned the competition, placing in nearly every event in which we competed.”

The sectional team included these staffers: 

The IHSA has offered a statewide journalism competition since 2006, partnering with the Illinois Journalism Education Association, which heartily endorses the series.

“What makes this tournament so exciting is that the students do all of their work onsite under deadline pressure. They’re on their own with no one to lean on. It’s a true test of journalistic ability,” says officials with the IJEA. “Students generally have just 90 minutes to complete their specific tasks, and then judges assess their work.”

Anthony Pretto is the Editor in Chief of this year’s Viator Voice and while overseeing the section editors and directing overall content, he also gets to do some writing. Mostly, he enjoys writing about events at school that have real-world implications, but at sectionals, he competed in news writing and sports writing.

In the sports writing category students are given a prompt, or an assignment, to craft a story about an actual game. At sectionals, it was covering last year’s boys’ state championship baseball game. At state, he will be writing about the girls’ state championship lacrosse game.

As part of their prompt, each student receives everything from the box scores and how each goal was scored, to quotes from players and coaches, or about eight pages in all of the game notes.

“At sectionals, I really pored over the box score to come up with my lead,” Anthony says. “I figured that’s how I could differentiate myself and stand out. Then I go into the who, what, where and when, and recap the game.”

He knows that at the state competition he and his classmates will be going up against talented writers and graphic designers, but he expects everyone to stick to their game.

“We have real quality writers on our staff,” Anthony says, “and Mr Paolelli sets the bar high. He teaches us up and always stresses finding a good lead and drawing the readers into the story.”