In light of the recent losses at the school, administrators, now more than ever, are emphasizing strong and interpersonal connections between students, teachers and faculty.
At this pivotal moment in our school’s history, we all hold the potential to change our school’s culture as we heal and recover from a year filled with unfortunate tragedies. The Chronicle seeks to promote these changes to our school culture and be a source of truth and clarity in a time of uncertainty. While the school focuses on healing, we aim to revitalize friendships and bring greater transparency to all of our community.
Better relationships within our community require better channels of communication, and as the school’s student-run newspaper, we believe The Chronicle can play a crucial role in rebuilding mutual confidence.
For the first time in school history, The Chronicle stands united with Vox Populi and HWTV under the broader HW Media structure, heralding an era of collaboration among all student publications. The creation of HW Media grants us access to new resources and an expanded staff, allowing us to implement a beat reporting system. This streamlined process enhances communication between our reporters and outside sources while establishing a central hub of information that remains consistent across all publications.
In past years of our publication, staff relationships with the athletic department have been marred by mistrust, partly due to our journalists’ insufficient dedication to establishing strong external relationships. For the new school year, our centralized beat reporting will allow journalists on The Chronicle to build stronger connections with coaches, athletic directors and athletes, working to ensure fuller coverage and accurate, timely reporting for as many teams as possible.
Our commitment to developing trust within our community extends to our academic and administrative departments as well. This year, our student journalists will be required to conduct interviews for all articles written in The Chronicle, including opinions and editorials, to ensure that facts are accurately represented and any conclusions made are based on reliable information. The Chronicle will additionally produce more short updates and briefs on all news subjects and utilize our social media platforms to quickly disperse important and breaking information.
We aim to cultivate trust within our community by also listening to all those who wish to be heard. To achieve this, we will introduce a survey on our website, hwchronicle.com, enabling community members to submit tips on topics they would like our journalists to further explore.
Above all, we want to make sure The Chronicle is a reliable source of information for the community. We want hwchronicle.com to be the first place students check when they need clarification on community news, when they can’t remember what was said at an assembly or when they would like to hear a student’s perspective.
When people think of our school, its history of excellence immediately comes to mind. The Chronicle, a nationally acclaimed high school newspaper, undoubtedly plays a role in maintaining this image of educational greatness. We want to help establish the school as a place of not just academic, athletic and artistic excellence, but also as a place where people consider connection and communication as notable, commendable and important characteristics of the student experience.
