TAJE JOURNALISM PORTFOLIO

Reporting + Writing

  • NEWS

    • “Existing As I Am Is Not A Crime.” This story was born out of a growing desire to center narratives I hadn’t heard before in my coverage. I’d never seen a journalist exclusively interview indigenous people for a story, so I figured it was high time I bring one into the world.

    • “No Kings protest Draws 20,000 In Protest of Trump-Era Policies.” Over the course of last year, I covered 5 local protests under the “No Kings” movement. This piece stands out to me, as it represents the collaborative ethos I seek to foster in our newsroom through leading by example.

  • PEOPLE

    • “Beseiged But Brave.” This story is by far my favorite, because I was able to efficiently localize an international story through, yet again, the power of collaboration. I worked with a fellow Ukrainian student to translate the testimonies of Ukrainians displaced by the conflict with Russia. Interviewing girls my age about family heirlooms under rubble and dreams deferred immensely broadened my perspective and, I hope, the perspectives of the Shield’s readers.

    • “Le Top Chef” in English and in French. This particular piece was somewhat early in my journalistic career, but it highlights the multilingualism I’ve worked to incorporate into our newsroom. As a heritage speaker of French, I don’t have many opportunities to use it outside of the home, so I sought to create those opportunities. I interviewed Top Chef contestant Kevin D’Andréa on his business, FoliePops, and his broader culinary philosophy.

  • OPINION

Editing, Leadership, + Team Building

  • Posted daily stories to macshieldonline.com from August 2025-present, Monday through Friday. Developed and maintained web document to track stories and inform web managing editor of deadlines via a weekly calendar and log of nearly 200 posted stories.

  • Developed contribution sheets for staffers and editors that detail expectations for journalistic coverage and grading. Modified the contribution sheet template over the course of issue cycles to better reflect evolving staff contributions.

  • Set and maintained weekly editor and editor in chief meetings on Fridays to check in with student leadership and gather feedback for future issue cycles.

  • Developed series of staff workshops, pairing current editors with future editors to train them for next year’s roles and positions. Created Google Form with next year’s positions and job descriptions.

  • Edited 20+ print stories per issue cycle for a total of 5 issue cycles in the round of final edits. Corrected grammatical errors, spelling (including name and pronoun verification,) and AP Style points. Reviewed all images and language used for fair use.

  • Managed weekly photo essay, the Thursday Top 10, from August to December. Assigned student teams to photograph events and write captions in a timely manner. Diversified the variety of sports coverage within the Thursday Top 10 to include softball, swimming, and volleyball, as well as football, basketball, drill team, and cheer. Additionally highlighted McCallum’s Fine Arts Academy with coverage of marching band, theatre, and Ballet Folklorico. Edited all captions for clarity, grammar, spelling, cultural sensitivity protocols, and consistency with AP Style.

  • Developed policies on sports broadcasting after staff created a sports broadcasting program. These included no swearing, clean footage in line with SNO video and audio standards, and the creation of highlight reels to maximize sports coverage opportunities on social media.

  • Developed policies on AI that successfully eliminated AI use in the newsroom after correctly identifying two uses of generative AI in student stories.

The following are examples of staff photo essays that I organized. I selected the writers, topics, and photos present in the essays, and edited 50% of captions alongside web managing editor Sophia Manos.

Design

  • WEB DESIGN

    • Conducted comprehensive website redesign with fellow editors in chief. Increased image portions of widgets to make them image-dominant. Changed font, header, favicon, and logo for computer and mobile devices. Added more featured stories and incorporated a multilingual section into our menu. Tripled multimedia presence on website by increasing number of monthly podcasts from 1 to 3, including one I run, Talking on Sunshine.

  • PAGE DESIGN

    • For this doubletruck, I collaborated with Shield staff member Tallulah McAuliffe, writing a news and opinion story respectively on the rise of artificial intelligence. This page design garnered 1st Place in the Feature Package category for the Southern Interscholastic Press Association’s Spring Visuals Contest. I contributed the “profitability of AI” infographic, brainstormed the page layout, chose the title font, and designed the pull quote.

Broadcast Journalism

  • Interview with Nic Stone: This interview occurred at the 2025 South by Southwest Edu Conference and was selected for inclusion in PBS Student Reporting Labs’s On Our Minds podcast. I interviewed New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone on her series, Dear Martin, and prepared by reading the eponymous first book in that series. We discussed identity, belonging, and the question of whether you can be someone you can live with for the rest of your life.

  • “Pierce Talks Connection, Acts of Kindness, Giving Back to Community”  I lead a podcast called “Talking On Sunshine,” which delves into stories of student leadership on and off campus. For this episode, co-host Riley Pita and I interviewed McCallum senior Noble Pierce on her experiences as a debate and wrestling captain, as well as a member of the Austin Independent School District’s Student Equity Council. Riley and I use Adobe Audition to edit audio and collaborate on episode planning, from questions asked to topics broached. I created the podcast’s theme music.

  • Ben Podcast: This podcast belongs to the previous iteration of Talking on Sunshine, the S Word, which served as the Shield’s original flagship podcast. For this episode, I interviewed Ben Polega, McCallum’s former student mascot, on what it’s like to serve in such a key community role with cerebral palsy.

Photojournalism *Please see link

PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS

• 1st Place Social Media Portfolio, Southern Interscholastic Press Association, 2025

• 1st Place News Photo, Southern Interscholastic Press Association, 2024

• 3rd Place Breaking News Photography, Quill and Scroll, 2024

• Superior Feature Photo, Texas Association of Journalism Educators, 2025

• 1st Place Club Photo, Southern Interscholastic Press Association, 2024

• 4th Place Best of Show National Scholastic Press Association, 2023

• 1st Place Feature Photography, Quill and Scroll, 2024

Web + Social Media

  • McCallum Students Walk Out. Caption.This post is currently the most viewed Instagram post on the @macjournalism Instagram, with 27K views since it was posted on Feb. 4 and over 1.1K likes. This post covers a student walkout in protest of ICE on McCallum’s campus. I wrote the caption and worked with McCallum’s social media manager, Sofia Saucedo, to select photos for the post, including the feature photo.

  • Austin Pride Parade. Photos and Caption. This post, for which I took photos and wrote the caption, covered Austin’s 35th Annual Austin Pride Parade. For the caption, I linked the parade to recent events such as calls to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges by anti-gay activists, and interviewed a former student from McCallum who identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. I am particularly proud of the caption’s title, Silence = Death, as it references a popular slogan dating back to the AIDS crisis and the activist group ACT UP, drawing parallels between the past and present, a cornerstone of my journalistic work.

  • 50501 Rally. Photos and Caption. For this post, I interviewed and photographed Kristin Jenn, a former ranger at Denali National Park and disabled veteran who lost her job due to budget cuts from the Trump administration. Later that day, MSNBC (now known as MS NOW) interviewed Jenn for their show “MSNBC Reports.”

  • December 2025, The Shield Online designated as a Scroggins Finalist by the Southern Interscholastic Press Association.

  • December 2025, The Shield Online was recognized as a Crown Award finalist by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association for High School Hybrid News (newspaper and online.) I took the photo cover used in CSPA’s post.

Law, Ethics + News Literacy

  • “Austin Area Students Seek Legislative Support for Student Press Freedom.” For this story, I followed the organization New Voices Texas as they advocated to Texas legislators about passing a New Voices bill, which would increase student press freedom in line with the Tinker standard, as established in the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines (1969)  and overturned in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (1988.)

  • Lynn Boswell Interview. In September 2024, I attended a journalism conference at the Texas State Capitol, where I interviewed AISD Trustee Lynn Boswell on Proposition A, a 9 cent property tax to increase AISD’s funding for crucial services, such as increasing teacher pay, mental health supports, and reducing a budget shortfall. Proposition A eventually passed in November 2024, resulting in the aforementioned policy goals.

Marketing + Audience Engagement

  • Crowdsourced $1,200 through the website’s SNO donate button by posting daily to the website from August-present. Received additional donation of $1,000 in the mail from the St. David’s Foundation.

  • Over the past 30 days, the @macjournalism account increased its percentage of accounts reached by 87.3%, for a total of over 500k views, primarily from followers. As a child of the internet boom, analytics are deeply important to me. Last year, I took an AP Statistics course to better understand how to use statistical modeling to maximize views for @macjournalism. I expanded on this by applying for and winning a scholarship for a 4 day program with the Yale Daily News in August, learning how to use the platform Flourish to make statistical modeling visually appealing to readers. We have incorporated Flourish and Canva more broadly in our publication over the past year.

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Photojournalism