Brooklyn Sauer is the Journalism Educators Association (JEA) 2023 Kentucky Journalist of the Year.

Journalism students are required to submit a portfolio their senior year for the chance to be JEA’s journalist of the year. Sauer has many pieces of work she is proud of in her profile. Sauer’s portfolio touches on every aspect of journalism and very diverse pieces, which ultimately got her the win.

Sauer is a senior who is a part of Livewire and Charged Media Solutions. She has been on Livewire’s staff for three years and currently holds the position of design editor for both Livewire and Charged Media Solutions. Journalism students are required to compile their work throughout their high school journalism career into an online portfolio to submit to JEA’s Journalist of the Year contest. The top three winners receive scholarships and recognition. “I’ve had my portfolio since my sophomore year, and since then I’ve noted things that I’ve made that I was very proud of. And obviously, those change as I grow and improve in different fields, so this year especially I added a lot of new things that really strengthened my portfolio overall,” Sauer said. 

Sauer has many pieces that she is proud of in her portfolio after many years on the journalism staff. “In particular, I do a lot of work for our Charged Media program that helped my portfolio stand out since it is a little outside of the realm of a typical journalism student’s work,” Sauer said. Journalists from all over Kentucky submit portfolios to JEA’s contest and have the chance to not only show the work they’ve done throughout their time on a journalism staff but also have a chance to win the title and a scholarship. “I focused a lot on trying to make my portfolio stand out, which I think helped a lot. I knew the judges were going to be seeing a lot of portfolios that would meld together, so I did things like making sure my portfolio looked nice and focusing on the work that I’ve done that I don’t think a lot of other journalists were doing,” Sauer said. Having work that stands out from all of the rest of the journalism students is important.

Not only is standing out important, but having passion for your work also adds to your portfolio too. Sauer had many pieces that she put a lot of work into and was proud of in her portfolio. “By far, my favorite thing in my portfolio is the layout that I made for Mr. Craven last year. I love it because it was the first time that I had made something in journalism that I wasn’t just proud of personally, but that other people loved too. I won multiple awards for it too, which definitely helps,” Sauer said. Sauer excels in design since she’s the design editor but touches on all aspects of journalism such as writing, photography and multimedia. “This year, I wrote an article on Gage Thorpe that I was very proud of. The writing process was significantly more difficult than any other article I’ve ever written due to the subject matter, so I worked hard to try and find a balance between handling the subject carefully while still producing an article that was interesting and made people want to read it,” Sauer said. 

Sauer’s win was finalized because of the diversity and coverage in her portfolio. “There are so many amazing, award-winning journalism staffs across Kentucky, and even within our own staff there are some incredibly talented writers, designers, and leaders, so I was honestly dumbfounded whenever I got told that I had won. I believe that my strongest work is in design, so I had just sort of assumed that someone with more traditional journalistic work would win,” Sauer said. This win will be a highlight not only for the program but also for Sauer. “I’m still in a little bit of disbelief, but I’m so excited and thankful that I am Kentucky’s Journalist of the Year,” Sauer said.