Peering over the tops of our PC screens in Weiler Hall and seeing the faces of our 76-person staff, we cannot help but remember our view while laying out Issue I of Volume 30 last year: bedroom walls, tired eyes and armchair backs confined to a grid of 5-by-5 Zoom boxes. In a school year spent isolated, we put together the paper miles away from one another and we pivoted to provide coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic while writing about online school events.

Without in-person experiences and our collaborative work environment, we were forced to reevaluate what community means to The Chronicle.
Closing the newsroom taught us that community comes in many forms that cannot be taken for granted.

Our mission for Volume 31 is not only to revitalize the sense of community within our staff but to actively facilitate its growth. We plan to connect to the Studio City neighborhood at large by engaging with newly constructed businesses and continuing our local coverage (see Community News).We also hope to branch out into greater Los Angeles by finding new audiences, developing connections with other high school journalism programs and creating a mentorship program with Spectrum, the middle school news magazine.

Volume 31 will also see more online content, with the expansion of the hwchronicle.com website, Student News Source app and a more active social media presence facilitated by our Digital Committee.

We will prioritize the natural environment by reporting on climate change’s impact in the community and examining what the school can do to improve its carbon footprint. The Chronicle will also conserve resources, like paper and ink, which we will achieve by using a digitally based editing process.

At the same time, we recognize that the familial nature of the newspaper staff, forged by long hours and a shared desire to produce high-quality journalism, can only be created and maintained if every staff member feels included, welcome and safe at The Chronicle.

As such, we have established a new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee that will align The Chronicle’s DEI goals with those of the school. It will hold workshops to educate staff members on respectfully conducting sensitive interviews. The committee will also ensure that our coverage is representative of the entire school community.

Last year’s volume saw many firsts for The Chronicle as we transitioned online and virtually produced a print newspaper. As we move into a new era for The Chronicle, we are committed to building community while implementing the digital lessons learned during COVID-19 and continuing our 31-year print tradition.

The fortitude of The Chronicle staffers throughout the past year showed that we can come together as a staff to persevere, and indeed flourish in the face of unforeseen challenges.
As we return to normalcy, we have implemented systems that we hope will preserve that sense of esprit de corps on The Chronicle for generations of passionate journalists to come.