Congratulations Dani Crossen on your wonderful contribution to The Cougar Chronicle at Central Kritsap High School. In reviewing your portfolio, the WJEA committee can see evidence of your growth as a write and thinker and that journalism is your passion and a big part of your life’s work to date. Four years is a long time to stick with a high school program and it’s clear how you’ve grown in talent and leadership. I am happy to announce that you are the 2026 WJEA Journalist of the Year and recipient of the $2000 Robin Morris Scholarship.
It is obvious that you enjoy the experience and take pride in interviewing and publishing stories of merit. Your portfolio features a wide range of news, features and opinion pieces. Some highlights include the debate coverage between Chris Reykdal and David Olson. The way the story was laid out with seven topics and photos was clear, clever and informative. Another engaging feature was your story on the HOSA club and their community contributions. The work you put into writing that piece with a co-author paid off with a superior rating in the team project category from WJEA back in 2024. It’s clear you’ve been good at this for quite a while.
The part of your work that stood out over other applicants is the diverse reporting from broadcast to newspaper to your AP course Capstone project based on the use of AI in the newsroom. You did the research that found if publications use AI as part of their process, the readers’ trust in that publication diminishes. You took an unfortunate situation by a staffer who used AI in a story and dug deep as to why this weakens the work of authentic, factual journalism. Then, you presented your findings in a session at the National Journalism Convention in Nashville. That took grit, hard work and in-depth research and reporting to help your peers understand the ethics that goes into verifying the accuracy of what is printed.
It is clear that your media adviser Kate Miller appreciates you for taking on tough assignments and getting those around you to buy in. She wrote that you wanted The Cougar Chronicle to earn every badge that School Newspapers Online offers with the goal of your newspaper to become a Distinguished website. You spent countless afternoons in the newsroom working on the breadth, depth and quality of the coverage that was posted. The Cougar Chronicle did in fact earn that distinction and your adviser attributes much of that success to your tenacity.
Mrs. Miller went on to write how you spent last summer working on your AP skills to help in your leadership role as Editor-in-Chief as well as taking on an unpaid internship writing for the local newspaper and having a story published in the Kitsap Daily News.
Dani, you have made a positive impact on your school campus and on the greater high school journalism community. There is no doubt, a great future lies ahead, and journalism will live on with leaders like you who “write boldly and tell the truth fearlessly.”