Hello, dear reader, and welcome to my first blog post. I’m Victor, the editor in chief of the HiLite newsmagazine at Carmel High School. Perhaps you’re here to meet one of the renowned contributors to the HiLite. Perhaps you’re here because it’s a boring Tuesday, and you have no plans. Either way, I intend to tell you about the inner workings of our beautiful newspaper. Welcome to “Meet the Press.”

First up is the staff editorial. You can usually find this on Page 28 in the Perspectives section of the newspaper or online. Now you may be wondering what a “staff editorial” is. Journalists and students who’ve taken Newspaper I (a class I strongly recommend) know, but I’m assuming the layperson isn’t especially familiar with how the whole thing works. Well, I’m not going to tell you.

Just kidding; of course I will. But the editorial, though simple-looking from an outside viewpoint, actually involves a sort of complex process. It begins with the managing editors, myself, the perspectives editors and various staff members. Together, we simply start a conversation on what’s been happening at school. Recent editorial topics have ranged from the RISE standards to new school policies to news events. Together, we solidify an opinion that we wish to write about. That isn’t to say we necessarily all agree on the conclusion we make, but we try to consolidate our opinions as much as possible. Still, there are outliers. For example, in politically-charged discussions, our GMN liaison James Benedict often contributes very liberal opinions to our staff editorial maestros, while we usually have more conservative opinions from Ryan Zukerman, one of our managing editors.

With an angle thoroughly laid out, a writer is tasked with representing this staff opinion without letting his or her own opinions interfere. It’s even conceivable that a reporter who completely disagrees with the majority perspective will write the staff editorial. The point is to represent the staff as a whole, not any single person.