Congratulations to Jake Pfeiffer, a senior at Naperville Central High School, on being named the 2024 Illinois Journalist of the Year by the Illinois Journal Education Association. A website featuring Jake’s portfolio of work and other supporting material is available here.

Jake is IJEA’s 35th Journalist of the Year since 1989 and the second Naperville Central student to be named the state’s top high school journalist. He serves as editor-in-chief of both the print and online versions of the Naperville Central student newspaper, Central Times.

“I joined the Central Times three years ago because I wanted to write,” Jake wrote as part of his application. “It was that simple, really. I liked writing, I was enrolled in a journalism class, and so I decided to join our newspaper so I could write more and put those journalism lessons to a use. Rather immediately, I was hooked. I loved telling the story of my school, be it by reporting on club meetings or district funding issues. At the end of my first year, I enrolled in the curricular class for students to work on the paper, and became our news editor.”

Jake continued: “With daily class time to devote to CT, I was able to do more: I wrote as much as I possibly could, in every section of the paper I could. I designed pages, took photos, edited any copy I could find, all because I loved what we did and wanted to contribute in any way I could. At the end of the year, I applied to be our editor-in-chief, and I got it. Since, I’ve been running every element of our paper, from our website to the production of our monthly print issues.”

Keith Carlson is Jake’s journalism teacher and publication adviser.

A panel of IJEA board members selected Jake based on his portfolio, self-analytical essays, résumé, transcripts and letters of recommendations. Mr. Carlson is president of IJEA, but he recused himself from the judging process.

The award, the highest individual student honor given each year by IJEA, comes with a $300 scholarship. Jake now advances to compete against other state winners for the national title.

The national JEA winner and runners-up will be announced in early April at the JEA/NSPA Spring National High School Journalism Convention in Kansas City. Scholarship funds of $3,000 will be awarded to the top winner, with $1,000 each for up to four runners-up.

The IJOY award is just the latest honor that Jake has earned for his journalistic excellence. In 2022 he won the IHSA state championship in sports writing, and his news writing garnered a Superior Rating from the national JEA in 2023, just one of five such ratings given in that category.

Other top awards include two first places in the 2023 IJEA Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest, one for Best Sports News Story and the other for Best In-Depth News Story.

Through it all, Jake has remained committed to his vision of what a scholastic news publication should be.

“High school newspapers, in my eyes, have their own roles: watchdog, elevator and explainer,” he wrote in his IJOY application. “The role of watchdog is much the same in high school journalism as it is professionally: hold higher powers accountable for their actions. As an elevator, high school newspapers lift their student body up, be it by covering their sport or club, writing student profiles or simply giving kids a platform to share their opinions and interests. The role of an explainer is important because students often just have things happen to them — a policy changes, construction closes a piece of the building, and now their lives are different. Making sure students know the reason behind policy shifts informs the community and fills a vital knowledge gap.

“Everything I do, every story I tell, every article I approve or edit is meant to fill one of these roles, from our efforts to explain chronic absenteeism to the myriad movie reviews we elevate and our efforts to hold our district to account.”

Congratulations again to Jake, and good luck at the national competition!