Sometimes when you cover the news, you become the news, too.
At the end of grueling A-Days, students arrive in room B-3. After boisterously greeting one another, the journalists settle down for the daily examen and quietly reflect on the prayer that poses three questions. What were the gifts from the day, what were the challenges, and what is a goal for the future?
In some ways, the English elective class, Journalism for 11th and 12th graders, is like the examen.
The joys are numerous: spinning the snack wheel, wearing the press badges which allow students to use their phones for interviews, carrying the professional reporter notebooks to record notes, going viral on TikTok, partnering with music organizations such as Gomoxie.org, and sharing the mission of writing and reporting about what students are doing and thinking.
The struggles are real, too. Pitching stories that will never make it online because of the potentially controversial content, sharing grievances about institutional policies, reminiscing about once having an accessible broadcast space, and disagreeing occasionally because of different points of view and perspectives.
But every 4th period class presents a new opportunity to learn more about a student or staff member or a sport or club or program, and then write about it. And some of the most recent discoveries of stories include two staff members as topics themselves.
In November 2025, juniors Kate Kampbell and Ellie Rehberger attended the National Scholastic Press Association conference in Nashville, TN. While there, Kampbell visited an exhibit of the New York Times. She learned about a summer program that intrigued her. When she returned home, she applied. And, a few weeks later, she received news that she was accepted. Kampbell will be heading to New York this summer to participate in the School of the New York Times Academy.
Kampbell said, “I’m excited to experience journalism in a new light. I hope that from my time in New York I’ll be able to learn more about how to have a positive impact in communities using journalism skills. I’m going to be taking the investigative journalism course, which is something that I’ve always wanted to learn more about because I believe that uncovering the truth and shedding light on issues is really important in our world today. Not only that, there are people from around the world who attend this summer academy and it will be a fun, and new experience.”
Information about the esteemed NYT program can be read HERE.
Another staff member, junior Samantha Gobal, is making waves in the writing world as well. In March, the Seattle Times announced their six new youth writers. Gobal is one of them.
“My time so far in the Seattle Times Student Voices program has given me so much formal training and journalism experience that I’m super excited to bring back to the Bellarmine program. I am extremely grateful for Ms. Hanigan and the journalism class for uplifting me to pursue journalism outside of class, and highly encourage any aspiring writers to put themselves out there and share their voice,” said Gobal.
See the Seattle Times Student Voices introductory article HERE.
Gobal is also interning with the magazine, Northwest Catholic. And, as if Lion journalism students aren’t already ubiquitous in media, the Northwest Catholic’s editor, Kate (McEntee B’93) DeWeese, was an editor of the Lion newspaper at Bellarmine.
In addition to serving on and writing for the journalism staff, both Kampbell and Gobal, as 9th graders, started a Write the World Club here on campus. Along with the other founders, students Kaitlynn Krause and Delya Lewis, Kampbell and Gobal host writing workshops every other month in room B-3. Write the World, an educational program created by Harvard University, allows these students and others to explore not only journalistic writing but creative poetry and prose as well.
Kampbell and Gobal continue to embrace their successes and overcome any setbacks as members of the media. They are also focused on their future goals in the writing realm.
So, when 4th period Journalism meets again at the end of an A-Day and engages in the examen, you can be sure that those who cover the stories and news of others are also worthy of a news article or two about them.
