Three years ago, the Cathedral High School student newspaper, the Megaphone, didn’t even have a website. But now irishmegaphone.com has been named the best high school newspaper website in its division in the state.
At the annual convention of the Indiana High School Press Association at Franklin College on Oct. 18, irishmegaphone.com was tabbed as the top student newspaper website in Division II (high schools with enrollments between 1,001 and 2,000). Out-of-state judges, most of whom are professional journalists or award-winning high school journalism teachers or college professors, evaluated websites that were entered into the association’s annual contest.
Finishing behind Cathedral in Division II were Greenwood Community High School, second place; and Floyd Central High School, third.
RJ O’Neal ’19, now a freshman at Indiana University, served as the website editor last year, with Colin Bilbrey ’20 and Ethan Marasco ’21 taking on that role this year. Liam Keenan ’17, now a junior at IUPUI who is majoring in business and journalism, got the website up and running during his junior year at Cathedral, setting up its initial design and formatting templates for stories, videos and photos.
The website includes content from the print version of the student newspaper as well as photos, video and additional stories. Material on the website is also available on Twitter @IrishMegaphone.com.
Two students were honored for their individual work published during the 2018-2019 school year. Senior Lila Welch won first place for sports writing in Division II, while senior Nic Napier earned third place for editorial writing.