Westford Academy’s student-run newspaper, the W.A. Ghostwriter, took home an All-New England Award in Scholastic Editing and Publishing from the New England Scholastic Press Association’s annual conference at  Boston University on May 2.

“I think the awards] show how far we’ve come as a newspaper, and how the quality of our content has been improving as a whole…. This is a big accomplishment for us […],” senior Co-Editor-in-Chief Kai Lou Yue said.  

The WA Ghostwriter is an online publication distributed electronically to Westford Academy’s 1,400 students under the guidance of English and Journalism teachers Janet Fonden and Jack Holbrook. A print edition is offered twice a year, at the holiday bazaar and at graduation.

The day kicked off with workshops in which the students could pick two to attend. These workshops were run by advisers from the attending schools or faculty of the BU School of Communications.

After the two workshops, all attendees gathered to listen to keynote speaker Jason Tuohey, editor of the BostonGlobe.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper’s digital publication.

In the early afternoon, after one last workshop, the All-New England awards were presented by NESPA director Helen Smith. This ceremony turned out to be the highlight of the day for the Ghostwriter.

Fonden believes the team was rewarded for the students’ strong writing and research.

“The graduating seniors have shown great maturity in writing and reporting.  I have been impressed by them writing stories that truly mattered to the student body,” Fonden said.

In addition, Fonden believes that the publication’s role at the school is given a lot of freedom and choice.

“I think that this paper is truly a forum for the students to express themselves, and [the students] are all allowed to write about the things that affect them, and things that are around them, and administration is hands off about it,” Fonden said.  

Ghostwriter staff members were also individually recognized,

Senior Features Editor Kayla Chavier won two awards for a podcast “Claire Shea: A shy girl with a big voice”, which she published back in March. Chavier also won for her feature article on a WA art teacher, entitled “Cook molds minds at WA”, which was published in November.

Sophomore Managing Editor Andrew Friel took home a special achievement award for his article on a Westford Academy hockey player, which was titled “Gulliver shares his tragic concussion story”, published back in January.
For his achievement, Friel said he was grateful that his hard work paid off.

“I felt very honored to receive this award. It feels good to have my work recognized among so many other successful student writers and publications in the area,” Friel said.

Co Editor-in-Chief, senior, Alok Ganguly was happy with this year’s staff on winning this award, even after the publication had some barriers to get around, as this the staff this year was the largest one in recent years.

“I feel proud of this staff. This year we ran into a lot of logistical issues as a staff that made working on the Ghostwriter much more challenging, but it is awesome to see everything come together and culminate in such a way that we get that kind of recognition,” Ganguly said.

As for advisers Fonden and Holbrook, they both voiced satisfaction with the achievements, since all members of the staff showed a lot of hard work and promise.

“We have a group of seniors who has been on the staff for four years, and it is amazing to see how they have grown as individuals and reporters the past few years. […] We also have a strong group of underclassmen who are eager and full of promise. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for them and this wonderful group,” Fonden said.

As for Holbrook, he is especially proud of how the young staff members have worked to help take over for the departing seniors.

“I have been so impressed with how this young group of reporters is stepping up to fill the shoes of the more experienced seniors,” Holbrook said.

These awards come at a time of much success as the staff recently received another award at Suffolk University for excellence in online journalism.

In a separate contest earlier this spring, senior Co-Editor-in-Chief Kai-Lou Yue, placed in the top ten in the New England Center for Investigative Reporting’s high school contest for a series of articles investigating Tinder, a popular dating website.

The Ghostwriter looks to build upon their success when they go to Indianapolis in November for the Journalism Education Association’s national conference.