Illinois Journalism Education Awards
Ever since its foundation in 1988, the Illinois Journalism Education Association (IJEA) has been promoting and awarding excellence in academic journalism within the community. The organization has awards and contests that it regularly gives to students, journalism educators, school administrators and other stakeholders who show brilliance in scholastic journalism.
Educator and Friend Awards
This award recognizes the work of high school journalism tutors who excel in their profession, including school managers and other members of the community who support scholastic journalism in one way or another. It doesn’t matter the setting where the recipients of these prizes are doing their work. It could be in a classroom, district administrative office or official newsroom. So long as they have an impact on teaching students the importance of high school journalism, they would be recognized.
IJEA Student Contests
As the name suggests, this contest was set to appreciate the best among Illinois journalism students and publications. It consists of 4 competitions that include a yearbook contest in November, Illinois Journalist of the Year contest in February, and two in March which are the digital news media contest and All-State Journalism Team selection.
In order to qualify for these contests, students must have advisers who are members of the Association. Each one of them is entitled to register for either the newspaper or yearbook contest free of charge.
IHSA Journalism Tournament
This competition is done in partnership with the Illinois High School Association. It targets journalism students throughout the state of Illinois where they compete in a total of 17 events that include photography, yearbook layout and news and business writing among other categories. The best 3 contenders in each category are then promoted to a final event at the Eastern Illinois University a week later.
The most interesting thing about this tournament is that students perform all their journalism work onsite, under pressure to meet the deadline and without any help from their instructors.
Online Journalism Degrees
Anyone interested in studying journalism at a university level can enroll in an online journalism degree. You can study from an institution located almost anywhere, including Australia, the United Kingdom and locally.