Reporting and Writing
From a young age, I loved to write. As a child, I used to write my own comics and short story books. In middle school, I joined the yearbook team with the intent of becoming a writer. Against my strongest wishes, I was assigned to design, which in the end turned out to be fate, since it allowed me to discover my passion for graphic design, which would later dictate my future career path. When I joined the newspaper staff in my sophomore year of high school after switching schools, I only wanted to do design, but I ended up being introduced to news writing, where I rediscovered my passion for writing. Being a part of Eagle Eye News has allowed me to explore both of my interests and better develop my writing skills. For this portfolio, I have compiled several examples of my work writing in different beats. More of my writing work can be found on EagleEye.News.
Click headlines to read the stories online
News Writing
Of all the sections in a school newspaper, I believe that news is the most valuable. In this day and age, teenagers seldom pay much attention to outside sources of news. By providing them with a news outlet directly at school that presents them with in-depth stories especially suited to their lives and interests, I believe that we, as the editors of Eagle Eye News, can improve students' news literacy. As news-literate teens, students are more likely to grow up to be news-literate adults, which will enables them to make informed voting decisions and participate in local government and state issues in their futures.
Photo courtesy of Daniel A. Varela/TNS
About: At the end of the 2022 school year, I, along with my fellow editors and staffers, worked on a legislative wrap-up piece that consisted of multiple news stories covering a variety of bills that had just been passed which would impact education. I chose to write this piece on the "Stop Woke Act" because I believe it is crucial for students to understand how their lives and educations will be influenced by the choices made by those who are high up in government. Only through educating students can we hope to increase activism among the young.
Photo courtesy of Jeffrey S. Solochek/Tampa Bay Times/TNS.
About: Also as part of the legislative wrap-up, I wrote this news story about the new graduation requirement of financial literacy. I spoke to my school's guidance department and the financial literacy teacher to better understand how they believe students' futures will be bettered by the addition of this requirement. In order to keep bias out of the sourcing for this story, I made sure to also get student opinions. Though the main intent of this article was to inform, I believe that it is important to share what students and faculty think of legislation such as this because not only does it highlight the reasoning behind the decision, but it exemplifies the implied effects.
About: For our second printed edition of our senior year, I wrote this brief on the changing bell schedule. Eagle Eye News uses briefs as a way to share small bits of news with the student body in our printed magazine. This was the first story that I wrote during my senior year, and overall concerned a topic important to many students.
Caught in the herd. Students at MSD have shorter passing periods in the new school year. Some find it more difficult to make it to class on time with only 6 minutes. (Graphic and captions by Dhaanya Balaji)
Photo courtesy of Daniel A. Varela/TNS
About: At the end of the 2022 school year, I, along with my fellow editors and staffers, worked on a legislative wrap-up piece that consisted of multiple news stories covering a variety of bills that had just been passed which would impact education. I chose to write this piece on the "Stop Woke Act" because I believe it is crucial for students to understand how their lives and educations will be influenced by the choices by those who are high in government. Only through educating students can we hope to increase activism among the young.
Photo courtesy of Jeffrey S. Solochek/Tampa Bay Times/TNS.
About: Also as part of the legislative wrap-up, I wrote this news story about the new graduation requirement of financial literacy. I spoke to my school's guidance department and the financial literacy teacher to better understand how they believe students' futures will be bettered by the addition of this requirement. In order to keep bias out of the sourcing for this story, I made sure to also get student opinions. Though the main intent of this article was to inform, I believe that it is important to share what students and faculty think of legislation such as this because not only does it highlight the reasoning behind the decision, but it exemplifies the implied affects.
About: For our second printed edition of our senior year, I wrote this brief on the changing bell schedule. The Eagle Eye News uses briefs as a way to share small bits of news with the student body in our printed magazine. This was the first story that I wrote during my senior year, and overall concerned a topic important to many students.
Caught in the herd. Students at MSD have shorter passing periods in the new school year. Some find it more difficult to make it to class on time with only 6 minutes. (Graphic and captions by Dhaanya Balaji)
Feature and Arts and Leisure
This was the first section I ever wrote for on Eagle Eye News. To this day, I still consider feature to be my favorite beat to write. Being a feature writer allows me to write stories that showcase things that my classmates and I are interested in. Feature stories can also act as a medium for student expression.
About: In the first quarter of my senior year, I wrote this feature piece on a rock band made up of students at my school. After a year of online school and a year of adjusting to being in-person, it was a new experience to be able to go out and interview students on things that they are truly passionate about. It played well into our theme of creativity and self-expression and helped me learn valuable lessons on human features.
Photo courtesy of Chained Saint.
Graphic by Julia Landy
About: For the third quarter print edition of the 2020-2021 school year, I was tasked with creating a self-care infographic. For part of it, I surveyed the student body, asking what they thought hindered their self-care. Options included items such as "lack of time," "lack of motivation" and "lack of access." There was also an "other" option that let students type their answers. Upon looking at the results, I found a surprising majority wrote something related to school. I decided to follow up with several of those surveyed who chose to provide their names rather than remaining anonymous. I received so much information that it inspired me to write this special feature piece for online, totally separate from my print piece. I felt it was important to bring this topic to people's attention because the mental impact of school, especially during the pandemic, seemed to be taking a huge negative toll on the well-being of students.
Photo by Julia Landy
About: For as long as I have lived in Parkland, I have loved attending the biweekly, community farmers' market. I knew some students from my school attended, but I felt like the students should be giving this event more recognition. In accordance with this idea, I decided to write a feature piece on it in order to promote it. This was my first time covering an event in person since we had previously been online due to Covid-19. Newsgathering and interviewing in-person proved to be a lot more challenging than doing it online. Though it is a short story, I chose to include it because it represents a great learning experience.
About: In 2022, The Eagle Eye editorial board wanted to create an issue of our print edition to specially highlight our school's diversity. The main attraction of this special edition was the collection of student features which showcased students from all different backgrounds and discussed their talents, hobbies and interests. For my feature, I chose Damian Francis.
Photo by Mariajose Vera
Opinion
Part of our job as a student-run publication is to provide a medium for students to express their opinions and beliefs regarding local happenings. During my first year on the Eagle Eye editorial board, I began to take part in that aspect of student journalism myself.
About: In this editorial, I expressed our editorial board's ideas on the recent Facebook debates regarding the boundaries for our overcrowded school. This piece was challenging to write because it was difficult to strike a balance between a complete summary of current events while still being able to stress our opinions. I felt that this was a critically important topic because the behavior of parents online was polluting our community with hatred. As a student journalist, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to use my voice to advocate for real change.
Graphic by Julia Landy
Photo by Claire Piklor
About: At the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, the first year back to fully in-person learning since COVID-19 began, my school district required masks. Not far into the second quarter, they lifted that mandate, making masks optional. Though at the time I had never written an opinion piece, I felt so strongly about this topic that I was inspired to join my fellow editor, Sofia Osio, in writing an opinion piece on the new lack of a mandate in the hope of encouraging students to continue wearing their masks at school, even without being forced to.
Sports
Although I have little experience with sports writing, I always enjoy taking an academic challenge. My piece on sports nutrition really encouraged me to venture outside my comfort zone and experiment with an in-depth sports feature in the field (pun intended) of athletics.
Graphic by Julia Landy
About: This story presented major challenges that I was forced to overcome. For the piece, I had to get in contact with sports nutritionists. I spent weeks over winter break contacting various nutritionists. Of the five planned interviews I had, three fell through. I had only needed one but planned extra in case. Afterward, I had to find 85 student athletes to survey and two to interview. Although the process and research took a long time, in the end, it was worth it. I am very happy with how this piece turned out, and I am hoping to enter it in competitions later this year.
Multimedia Reporting
As someone who's main journalistic focus is in the field of visual communications, I highly appreciate multimedia reporting and secondary coverage in my magazine. The following examples illustrate secondary coverage that I wrote and designed for printed editions of Eagle Eye News' magazine. Click examples to view online.
