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Alan Tai, JEA Student Journalist Of The Year

Author
Mark Simon
Published
Tue 24 Jun 2025
Episode Link
https://redcircle.com/shows/3321739a-247a-4730-a995-15faa82f68d4/episodes/75f998fc-3b5d-4c3f-a44d-c889b9b3d38e

On The Journalism Salute we interview journalists about who they are and what they do with the intent of showing that journalists are not the enemy. Today we're joined by Alan Tai. Alan just won the Journalism Education Association's Student Journalist of the Year award as a senior at Monta Vista High School in California.

Alan talked about his experiences on the student newspaper, El Estoque as an editor-in-chief and also as a writer of features and op-eds. He explained what the school's journalism program is like and how it successfully deals with school administration. He also shared lessons he learned and offered tips to guide future editors-in-chief.

This is the 4th straight year we've interviewed the national winner of that award, the first of them was Anushka De, also from Monta Vista High School.

 Alan's salutes: The Journalism Education Association, Student Press Law Center, Columbia Scholastic Press Association, and The News Literacy Project.

Story examples:

Feature on local residents who were military veterans

https://elestoque.org/2022/11/11/features/american-heroes/

Cheat GPT: Is It Time To Kill The Essay?

https://elestoque.org/2023/03/21/opinion/cheatgpt-is-it-time-to-kill-the-essay/


Thank you for listening. You can e-mail me at [email protected]

Visit our website: thejournalismsalute.org 

Mark’s website (MarkSimonmedia.com)

Tweet us at @journalismpod and Bluesky at @marksimon.bsky.social

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