By Kai Pennington
Portage Northern Light
Portage Northern HS
1st Place
Division 3, News Writing
As of October 12, 2020, to be in compliance with current state guidelines for reporting Covid-19 data in schools, PPS has added a Covid-19 dashboard to their main webpage.
The dashboard is a Google Sheets file that indicates the number of current staff and students with positive Covid-19 tests district wide and also in each building.
“The district, in collaboration with the Kalamazoo County Health Department, only communicates confirmed cases of COVID-19 in a school building, student event/activity, or district-sponsored function,” says PPS Communications Director Michelle Karpinski. To maintain the balance between reporting and privacy requirements, the names of individuals testing positive will not be released. “All contact tracing will be handled confidentially by the Health Department,” Karpinski explains. “In an effort to protect student and employee privacy rights, we respectfully encourage all Portage Public School families and students not to spread rumors or false information.”
NW-04. News Brief
News briefs should be 150-200 word stories that report on events and issues that have news value and timeliness to the publication’s readers. Coverage should include quotes or other attributed information from at least one human source. Submit a PDF of the print page(s) on which the news brief was published or the URL to the story on an online news site.
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Meets word count limit
- Does not sacrifice accuracy for the sake of timeliness
- Sharp, attention-getting lead that underscores news story importance
- Uses inverted pyramid
- Sentences are carefully constructed to be as concise as possible
- Emphasizes news elements, i.e. timeliness, nearness, impact, and prominence
- Uses direct quotes or attributed information from at least one source