The Mirror’s print edition won its third Pacemaker Award at The 2025 NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention in Nashville on Nov.15, marking the publication’s first print Pacemaker since 2019 after multiple consecutive nominations.
The print win comes one semester after The Mirror’s website earned its first online Pacemaker at the Spring 2025 convention in Seattle, making this school year the first time the publication has won both print and online Pacemakers in the same year.
The Pacemaker, often called the Pulitzer Prize of high school journalism, recognizes fewer than 50 print and online publications nationally each year from a pool of over 1,000 entries.
The Mirror staff also earned six individual awards at the Nashville convention, winning first place, two third place awards and three honorable mentions across editorial, online, design and illustration categories.
Award recipients include:
First Place – Story of the Year (Editorial):
Joel Nam for “The Yondr Pouch Has Become LAUSD’s Million Dollar Failure”
Third Place – Cartoon of the Year:
Alisa Laura for “Trump’s Cruel Immigration Machine.”
Third Place – Newspaper Front Page:
Abigail Kim for “The Rise and Fall of Generation Alpha.”
Honorable Mention – Interactive Graphic:
Maya Diaz for “Controversial Book Bans Spark National Debate in Schools.”
Honorable Mention – Story of the Year (feature):
Madison Thacker for “Julian Pankowski Unscripted.”
Honorable Mention – Multimedia Journalist of the Year:
Maya Diaz
The Mirror’s print edition has now won three Pacemakers since its first win in 2015, while the online edition earned its inaugural Pacemaker this spring. Both publications compete in NSPA’s largest school divisions against newspapers and websites from schools and enrollments over 1,800 students.
