Press triumphs over politicians in 2023 Spelling Bee
Journalists triumphed over lawmakers in the 2023 Press vs. Politicians Spelling Bee on Wednesday. Amy Wang, a national politics reporter at The Washington Post and defending champion, won for a second consecutive year.
In the fifth and final round, which focused on previous championship words in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, the contest narrowed to two journalists, along with a single politician. Those still standing were Wang, James Graff, a justice and judiciary editor at The Wall Street Journal, and Rep. Don Beyer, D-VA.
"They are looking up a hard one," Graff said before hearing the first word he got wrong. "Manicotti" wasn't the word to get him out, but rather "Ecuelle."
But the final round, titled "Gibberish," proved equally challenging for wordsmiths Wang and Beyer when they each spelled a word wrong.
The first word Beyer spelled wrong was "Estafette," which means if he spelled another word wrong, Wang would win the bee.
Wang incorrectly spelled "Niminy-Piminy," and Beyer misspelled "Pampootie." Moments after the bell was tapped, Beyer shook hands with Wang, accepting a defeat.
1980 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion and official pronouncer for the Bee, Jacques A. Bailly, and 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion Dev Shah had explained the rules at the start..
The spelling bee began with the category of fruits and vegetables, with "Banana" as the first word. "Apricot," which has more than one pronunciation, was spelled correctly by New York Times investigative reporter Mark Walker. After getting the official confirmation from the judges that the word was spelled correctly, he displayed a celebratory fist gesture, and the crowd cheered.
On the politician side, first up was Rep. Chris Pappas, D-NH., a third-time participant in the bee, who was given the word "cauliflower." Before he could utter a word, the crowd let out a resounding groan, followed by laughter.
"I would be interested in the language of origin on that one," Rep. Pappas asked. "Just for my own edification."
After the crowd stopped laughing, Bailly gave the origin. Pappas then spelled "cauliflower" correctly. All journalists and politicians competing in the first round spelled their words correctly.
The second round focused on journalism and writing. The judges asked the contestants to spell, among other words, "Blogosphere," "Editorialize," "Gazette," and "Errata." Each side had one person who misspelled a word.
About thirty minutes into the spelling bee, the first journalist to leave the competition was Walker of The New York Times, who misspelled the Capitol of Maryland: Annapolis.
The first member of Congress to exit the competition was Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-IA, who incorrectly misspelled "Narcolepsy."
In the fifth round, it was the winning word "Croissant" of 14-year-old Libby Childress of Winston Salem, North Carolina, in the 1970 Scripps Spelling Bee, that kicked Bloomberg's Industry Group news director Fawn Johnson out of the competition.
"Just a cliff note here that we have the Team Politician of 24 and Team Press 28," the announcer read as Camia Catalina , deputy news director of Bloomberg’s Industry Group, took the podium. She was given the word "acetaminophen," but misspelled it and was eliminated over an hour into the contest.
The tradition started in 1913 and was won by members of the House and Senate that year.