​Bella Kim of Los Alamitos High School has been awarded a $500 scholarship by the Southern California JEA as runner-up for the 2025 California Journalist of the Year. 

Kim is set to attend Stanford University where she plans to study journalism. She was editor-in-chief of the Griffin Gazette for two years and won five Best of School Newspaper Online awards during her three years with the Gazette. As a freshman, Bella was a finalist and honorable mention in The New York Times' high school profile contest. She's also interned with The Youth Center and Spotlight Schools. 

In 2023, CalMatters and the Asian American Journalists Association selected her to participate in their summer program, JCal, and she reported for CalMatters' South Bay Youth Journalism initiative last year., Bella received a scholarship to represent California at the 2024 Al Neuharth Free Spirit and Journalism Conference in Washington, D.C.

About 150 Southern California students learned journalism skills and networked with professionals during the 32nd annual JDay at Cal State Northridge on Oct. 26, 2024.

Students also competed in wiring, photo and video contests and attended two workshops before listening to keynote speakers in the afternoon. The event was organized by Southern California Journalism Education Association, Los Angeles Times High School Insider and CSUN Department of Journalism.

Special thanks to event sponsors CalMatters and Society of Professional Journalists, Greater Los Angeles chapter. SoCal JEA is also deeply grateful to our guest speakers for supporting contests and workshops, as well as the judges.

Congratulations to Itzel Luna on being the first SCJEA Journalist of the Year 2021. She was the highest ranking Southern California student among the portfolios submitted by student journalists in California.
Luna was the editor-in-chief of the newsmagazine at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School. She was in the journalism program all four years of her high school career. Each summer, she participated in summer journalism programs or internships, including the Princeton Summer Journalism Program and KTLA Channel 5 morning news.
She is now a freshman at Stanford University where is is contributing to the Stanford Daily and a Cal Matters College Network Fellow.
In 2021, the SCJEA Board of Directors agreed to create a new scholarship that would award  $500 to the top JOY student from our member schools. The goal is to ultimately give additional JOY scholarships like our northern California counterpart, JEANC.

Click on the video above to see why Mitch Ziegler is deserving of this recognition. 

Here is a story by JEA Awards Chair Erinn Harris that was published on JEA.org in January when the award recipient was announced.

In his 31 years as a yearbook adviser, Ziegler has become a legend in the field. Student press rights advocate, photography guru, local committee chair, writing coach, contest judge: there isn’t one area of yearbook that isn’t in Ziegler’s wheelhouse. 

In his own words, “Jeez, I love this.” 

Even for those with a deep love of yearbook, COVID-19 presented significant obstacles in production schedules. However, the pandemic was yet another opportunity for yearbook students — and their advisers — to demonstrate the value of yearbook and 21st Century Skills.

“March 16, 2020, was emblematic of the ways journalistic yearbooks epitomize 21st Century Skills for students in college and their careers,” Ziegler said. “That day was the last day my students stepped foot on the Redondo campus for the year, and that day represents how they utilized creativity, critical thinking, flexibility and social skills to complete one of the best yearbooks in Redondo history.” 

Creativity, critical thinking, flexibility and social skills are all characteristics typical of Ziegler’s students, before, during and after the pandemic. 

“Though the three of us are currently working in vastly different fields,” Ziegler’s 2017 Editors-in-Chief Lauryn Alejo, Alysa Kataoka and Matthew Yonemura said in a recommendation letter, “the lesson and skills Ziegler has imparted upon us have significantly shaped our work ethic and outlook outside of the classroom. Despite the differences in our career goals, the leadership skills that Ziegler taught us have naturally translated to our respective pursuits. Ziegler set up his students for their futures beyond yearbook.” 

In order to advise yearbooks that consistently produce at the level of Ziegler’s staffs, one must be a lifelong learner, and Ziegler loves to learn. 

“In years teaching workshops to advisers at various locales across the country, I’ve never seen anyone as giddy about learning as Mitch Ziegler,” Bradley Wilson, Ph.D., MJE, said. “He just really enjoys getting out and trying new things, looking at things from a new point of view and having new experiences.” 

Anything Ziegler learns, he is ready and willing to share. A frequent presenter, podcast guest and volunteer, he has been a mentor to advisers and students around the country. 

“Thankfully, I met Mitch Ziegler during the summer of 2017, and in him, not only did I find an encyclopedia worth of knowledge, experience and wisdom, but my students and I also discovered an educator, guide and willing mentor,” Orange County School of the Arts adviser Courtney Harper said.

Year after year, advisers around the country look at The Pilot yearbook and wonder, “How does he do it?” 
Antelope High School adviser Pete LeBlanc, CJE, has the answer: “He is doing everything right. He empowers his students to run their own program, create their own book and execute their own vision. As an adviser, he points and prods in the right direction, giving them the space to take full ownership of their product. The power of the educational experience for Mitch’s students is among the best in the country, just like, and more importantly, than the actual yearbook.”

Ziegler was recognized formally this spring during the JEA/NSPA Spring National High School Journalism Convention alongside the following Distinguished and Special Recognition Yearbook Advisers. Here is a video where Mitch delivered a speech. (Forward to 9 minutes into the video to see Mitch and other distinguished yearbook advisers were also recognized at this ceremony.)

 Retired journalism adviser and ardent supporter of students' rights to free speech Konnie Krislock will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from JEA in Anaheim at the Spring National High School Journalism Convention. Krislock, along with nine other recipients, will receive her honors at the luncheon to be held on Saturday, April 27.

From JEA's website:  Konnie Krislock, Newport Beach, California, has known for years how to get the best out of her students and how to make that possible for new advisers wanting the same thing. As a JEA mentor, Krislock not only provided educational support to her mentees, but also a force to be reckoned with when it came to scholastic press rights. “When school started, Konnie came in to work with my students and we arranged a meeting with my new principal,” nominator Jessica Young, MJE, said. “Not one to mince words, Konnie immediately informed my principal of his role in MY program. I knew I had someone in my corner, ready to answer my questions, support my choices and cheer me on as I faced new challenges.” Krislock has provided that same support system to numerous other teachers, helping them navigate the world of advising through her Newspapers2 Workshop in Southern California and also helping write the California Free Expression Law in 1977.