Illinois JEA

Congratulations to our 2025 Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest winners!

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Newspaper Contest Coordinator • April 20, 2025

Take a bow, Illinois high school journalists! This year our annual IJEA Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest received nearly 900 entries from almost 30 schools. In recognition of the outstanding work that Illinois high school journalists produced from March 2024 to March 2025, we are proud to announce our 2025 winners. Check inside for the results!

Congratulations to our 2024 Yearbook Contest winners!

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Board Member • November 20, 2024

More than 30 schools participated in this year's contest, which was for books covering the 2023-24 school year. Congratulations to all of our yearbook advisers and students! We are proud of the amazing work you did last year! Best of luck on your continuing coverage of the current school year. We can't wait to see the entries for 2024-25!

UPDATE: Our 2024 Yearbook Contest deadline has passed. Good luck to your students!

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Board Member • May 27, 2024

We want recognize the amazing work your students have done documenting the 2023-24 school year! Our 2024 Yearbook Contest is now open and will accept submissions through Oct. 15. Please note that this deadline is a month earlier than usual. By using this earlier deadline, we hope to have the results back to you by Thanksgiving!

Meet our 2024 All-State Journalism Team, MVPs of their school media!

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Board Member • April 30, 2024

For the past 20 years, the IJEA All-State Journalism Team has recognized those students who have proven themselves indispensable to their respective school media. These are the student journalists who are the “MVPs” of their publications, dedicated and energetic team leaders whose main contributions often occur behind the scenes.

Congratulations to our 2024 Newspaper & Digital News winners!

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Newspaper Contest Coordinator • April 28, 2024

Congratulations to all of our participating advisers and students! This year's competition received more than 1,000 entries from a total of 30 schools. The quality of entries was outstanding! Best of luck to everyone as you wrap up the school year. You make us proud to be associated with Illinois scholastic journalism!

Nominate your staff MVP for the IJEA’s All-State Journalism Team by April 5!

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Board Member • March 29, 2024

[PLEASE NOTE: Our extended deadline has passed. Good luck to everyone who was nominated!] We've extended the All-State Journalism Team nomination deadline to 11:59 p.m. Friday, April 5! The IJEA All-State Team recognizes the MVPs of Illinois high school journalism staffs — those indispensable students who do much of their work behind the scenes.

UPDATE: Deadline for 2024 Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest extended to Friday, March 22

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Newspaper Contest Coordinator • February 25, 2024

In recognition of the time crunch that many of our members face at this time of the school year, we have extended by one week the deadline for submitting entries to the 2024 IJEA News & Digital News Media Contest. The deadline is now 10:59 p.m. Friday, March 22. Good luck to our members and their students!

Congratulations to our 2023 All-State Journalism Team!

Linda Jones, IJEA Executive Director and Dave Porreca, CJE • May 16, 2023

The IJEA is proud to announce the members of the 2023 All-State Journalism Team. The 12 students selected for this year's honor were nominated by their advisers in recognition of the indispensable contributions they made to their publications during 2022-23. Congratulations to these MVPs who rose to the occasion in yet another challenging year!

Congratulations to our 2023 Newspaper & Digital News winners!

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Newspaper Contest Coordinator • May 14, 2023

Illinois high school journalists truly rose to the occasion during the 12 months covered by the 2023 IJEA Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest to document the post-pandemic return to in-person learning and extracurriculars throughout the state. Once again, these students made us proud to be associated with Illinois scholastic journalism!

Our 2023 Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest is open for entries!

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Newspaper Contest Coordinator • February 15, 2023

[MARCH 15 UPDATE: The 2023 contest is now closed for entries.] We have continued to partner with BetterBNC to provide a smooth and efficient platform for submitting entries in the IJEA Newspaper & Digital News Media Contest. Our 2023 platform is now up and running! The entry deadline is Wednesday, March 15. We look forward to recognizing the great work of your students. Good luck to all!

Calling all 2021-22 yearbooks! The 2022 IJEA Yearbook Contest is now open for entries through Nov. 15

Dave Porreca, CJE, IJEA Board Member • June 22, 2022

[NOV. 15 UPDATE: The 2022 contest is now closed for entries.] And we have a new contest address! Due to the retirement of longtime contest coordinator Dr. Sally Renaud, EIU will no longer be our yearbook home. Instead, the new mail-in destination for participating yearbooks will be Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette. The postmark deadline is Nov. 15, 2022. Good luck to all!

Annual awards event recognizes All-State Team, Journalist of Year and former IJEA director

June 17, 2022

We honored our 2022 All-State Journalism Team, Illinois Journalist of the Year and IJOY runner-up as well as former IJEA Executive Director Dr. Sally Renaud on June 4 in Springfield. Thank you to the Illinois Press Foundation for making this event possible and to film critic Matt Fagerholm for serving as our keynote speaker. Congrats to all!