Ernie Pyle, the great WWII reporter, once said, “If you want to tell the story of a war, tell the story of one soldier.”

For student media, we might amend this to, “If you want to tell the story of a school, tell the story of one student.”

Pyle was highlighting, of course, the importance of focusing on stories, and on the human scale of the event. We might feel that way about telling the story of a school year. There is just so much we could cover in our student media that we don’t know where to begin, but what if we focused on one student at a time, on one day her life?

Or what if we simply focused on ONE DAY in the rich tapestry that is a school year?

We have chosen our ONE DAY to be Friday, Nov. 5, and we hope your students will have some fun, and perhaps uncover some stories that would otherwise slip by us.

• A print news staff can produce one page, one spread, or multiple spreads, whatever paper size you normally use, with the only requirement being that everything covered must be from Nov. 5 and must be combined into ONE PDF.
• A yearbook staff would have the same challenge, producing a spread (perhaps based on the same design approach as the 2022 book).
• A video staff can produce a video of the day, with a two-minute maximum length.
• An online staff can enter up to 20 URLs demonstrating how they covered the day, whether through website posts or social media, or some combination.

Everyone can take part, and each current CSMA member medium may submit one entry. There will be categories for each of our four media types, and we will offer small and large enrollment classifications (“small” is under 1,800 students, just FYI).

Once the reporting has been completed, you have plenty of time to edit, write, proof, design, etc. Entries may be uploaded to our contest entry form anytime from Nov. 9-Dec. 1.

Entries will be judged by experts, and winners will receive special certificates of commendation. Results will be announced in early January. The top entry will receive a $200 voucher to use in paying for J-Day registrations or summer workshops sponsored by CSMA; other honorees will receive a $100 voucher.

But everyone will be a winner if we produce great reporting on ONE DAY in the life of your school community, particularly if you find some way to share your work with your community.

CSMA wants to share your work even more widely, and will produce a compilation of all the entries, shared through our website. Check out last year’s honorees.

We can’t wait to see what everyone produces!