East Meadow High School students win journalism award

Two East Meadow High School students were recognized for their journalistic talent at Adelphi University’s virtual Press Day on Feb. 18. Gianna Devita and Gabriella Reiss, both juniors, earned a Quill Award for their story “There is No Place Like Home!” published in their school’s newspaper, The Jet Gazette.

Press Day is an event hosted by Adelphi to develop the skills of high school journalists. The Quill Awards are just one part of the program, which also encompasses panels and speakers who discuss the industry. Awards are presented in 15 categories.

Devita and Reiss’s piece won in the Arts Review category. Their article, published in The Jet Gazette’s Fall 2021 issue last December, reported on the closure of Broadway shows because of the coronavirus pandemic, and the unemployment that theater workers faced, and continue to face. The “longest theatrical blackout” in New York state history, as the story described it, stretched from March 2020 to September 2021.

Both students are avid theatergoers, and said they were disappointed when shows shut down. Once Broadway opened back up, they decided that it would make for a great article, and instead of flipping a coin to see who would get to write about it, they decided to team up.

“We looked at multiple aspects of Broadway closing, not just the tourism aspect or people not being allowed to see shows,” Reiss explained. “…We got interviews from teachers in our school who were one of the first people to see a Broadway show when it first reopened.”

The title of the piece was inspired by people who describe Broadway as almost a second home to them, Reiss said. Both girls did interviews for the story, with Reiss focusing more on the unemployment angle, while Devita wrote about the background of the Theater Row shutdown and reopening.

Devita and Reiss have been working with the Jet Gazette since they were freshmen. Reiss is the Arts and Entertainment editor ,and Devita edits the editorials. They have taken the journalism class offered at EMHS.

“I always enjoyed writing and art,” Reiss said. “… I remember telling my mom I wanted to do journalism when I found out about it in eighth grade.”

Devita said her path to journalism was similar. “I took the class in ninth grade,” she said, “and decided to continue with the newspaper even when the class wouldn’t fit in my schedule.”

The girls were pleasantly surprised that they won the Quill Award, and said that they didn’t even know that their story was entered. The Jet Gazette’s editor in chief, Spencer Leventhal, and its faculty adviser, English teacher Carrie Piombino, decide which articles are submitted for the awards, the girls said.

“I received a text from Gianna, and she was like, ‘Gabby we won,’” Reiss recounted. “And I was like, ‘What did we win?’”

Devita watched on live stream the awards ceremony with other journalism students and Jet Gazette contributors in the East Meadow High School library, and when people started looking at her and clapping, she finally realized that she and Reiss had won. “I was shocked, but I’m very proud of us,” Devita said. “This is the first thing I’ve won, and it feels really good.”

Reiss said that winning a journalism award was one of her goals, but she never thought it would happen. “In class, we would read articles from other schools, and I would think that they’re too good, and I wouldn’t be able to do better than that, but I’ll try,” she said. “I couldn’t even believe that we won.”

In an email to the Herald, Piombino wrote that she entered the girls’ story because it was a “timely and a beautiful tribute to an industry that has been so hard hit by the pandemic.”

“They were able to interview a significant number of people who recently attended a Broadway show — a great feat considering the number of openings and closings Broadway has experienced in the past four months,” Piombino wrote. “… I have had the privilege of having Gabby and Gianna as students in both my English classes and Journalism class over the years and it has been wonderful watching them become accomplished writers.”

Neither award winner is sure whether journalism will be her career path, but both enjoy it. “I genuinely enjoy writing for the Jet Gazette,” Devita said. “The work isn’t grueling, and I like doing it.”

“Writing for the paper has forced me to widen my scope of the world in general,” Reiss said. “… It helps me improve my social skills and learn more about the people around me.”