Best of Best of SNO: End of Year

Whether your 2024–2025 school year is in the books or still wrapping up, it’s been another great year here at SNO in terms of the pieces submitted for Best of SNO consideration.

As we get ready to close out the final week for Best of SNO submissions, we’ve had over 15,300 stories entered for consideration. While that’s fewer than last school year, keep in mind that we limited submissions this year to Monday through Thursday so our reviewers could thoroughly read everything, evaluate all Distinguished Site badge submissions, and ensure plaques were built and shipped in a timely manner. Even with that limitation, we still received over 1,000 more submissions than during the 2022–2023 school year!

The Distinguished Sites Committee recently looked back on the more than 2,300 pieces published this year and selected some of their favorites. Check them out below!

In “Inside the Tumultuous Vote to Eliminate K–8 Schools,” the Theogony staff made excellent use of the long-form story template to examine a controversial school board vote, breaking the story into manageable segments for the reader.

Another standout news piece was “Confidential Student Information Released in District 203 Data Leak” by the Central Times staff. This article impressed us particularly because it wouldn’t have happened without a staff member carefully reviewing board documents ahead of a meeting—a strong example of watchdog journalism in action.

On the opinion side, we’re always suckers for well-written pieces about the importance of student journalism, and Manual RedEye nailed it with “The Case for Student Journalism.” The article not only featured a range of links and quotes from reputable sources, but also took time to spotlight other student publications across the state.

We also love seeing coverage of lesser-known sports, and this year brought several great pieces about fencing, martial arts, and pickleball. However, The Epic had a bit of a cheat code with “Justin Liu Serves Up Success with Table Tennis,” profiling a student competing at the national level in one of the SNO Patrol’s favorite sports.

With so many multimedia submissions throughout the year, we wanted to highlight a few standouts across each medium:

• The Standard shared great rugby photography in “Boys Varsity Rugby Competes Against TASIS.”

• The Tosa Compass had a great sense for what would make for a good podcast with “Tosa West Talks: I Made This!”

• The Messenger managed to get a crew out for a tremendous video opportunity with “Local First Responders Train at Vacant Chesterfield Mall.”

We also received a wealth of strong election coverage as the school year began. The Rubicon had an edge with “Class of ’04 Alumni Tim Sheehy May Shape the Senate,” diving into the political journey of a former student now running in one of the most closely watched U.S. Senate races.

Another major story this year was the Los Angeles fires. Several schools in or near the affected areas covered the story with sensitivity and impact. The Ultraviolet let those who suffered losses share their experiences in “A Tribute to Altadena and the Palisades.”

While we have an entire category for college submissions, one standout piece was “‘Everything Was Normal and Then Nothing Was Normal’” from The Lafayette. The story gave seniors who began college during the pandemic a platform to reflect on how it shaped their college experience.

Finally, some stories simply grab you from the start. That was the case with “Unbreakable” from Portrait—a powerful reminder of the ability of journalists to tell stories with compassion, care, and depth.