Disrespect of Newspapers

By: Rose Lu

It’s the period after distribution, where all the journalism staff goes out and delivers papers. Already, there are papers scattered on the floor, papers being thrown in the trash can–not even being properly recycled. “Personally I feel offended because the journalism class always works hard on the newspaper and it’s being undistributed or mishandled,” said layout team member Nghi Nguyen. It hasn’t been the first time that the newspaper or the school have been treated like this.

At the beginning of every issue, the entire staff gets together to brainstorm potential story ideas, the theme of the newspaper, and even the centerspread to make it enjoyable and relevant to current events within our school. Afterward, everyone within the staff writes a story for the paper, which is revised over and over again by the editors. Even the photographs and graphics are revised thoroughly, to make sure that the newspaper is relevant to the events happening around the school. Then after-school layout happens, where the layout team, editors and mostly everyone else works together to make sure the placement of the stories are perfect, that the stories align and match with the pictures. “I spent around 12 hours on the November Issue designing only two pages alone,” reminisces design editor Victor Xie.

“ I wish that they would just read it,” says journalist Lawrence Pei. The newspaper is for reading–not for turning into paper hats, dumping it on the ground right next to the recycling bin or throwing it away in the trash, especially at someone else’s expense. It’s pretty annoying when people don’t take responsibility for their actions, such as dumping the newspaper on the ground; if you don’t want to read the newspaper, there’s a choice to leave it in the classroom, but if you’re going to throw it away, at least recycle it and do it in a way so that other people like our janitors don’t clean up after you.

If there’s an issue with the spelling of someone’s name, the sports page or any article, there’s a reason for the retractions feature. Send a message to any of the staff and it will be clarified. This doesn’t apply to everyone, but there have been instances of angry messages directed towards some of these mistakes in the newspaper.

I didn’t have an issue with all this chaos before I joined journalism, because I never saw nor understood how much work gets put into the newspaper for every issue. After working on just two issues, and seeing my work along with all the other staffs’ work being disregarded, ignored, and being nonexistent to some people, I can finally understand why this is an issue.

This isn’t just a problem with just the newspapers. It happens with teachers and their lesson plans, the ASB officers’ hard work and planning, the principal and all the other staff. “I do undergo a lot of stress because of the workload and it does sometimes feel unacknowledged and unappreciated by the whole school in general,” shared ASB Treasurer Chloe Nguyen.

All of the faculty and students work hard to provide for Piedmont’s students in every way possible for a better education and high school experience. “When planning rallies, executive need to plan out how long each segment of the rally will last in order to fit within the 30 minute time window we are given,” explained ASB Secretary Tommie Huynh, “It takes up to two weeks prior to the occasion.” It takes a lot of time and effort to plan events and lessons, which is why we should all be appreciative for everything that the ASB and the faculty does for us.

Don’t take the newspaper and the events for granted. High school lasts for only four years.