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About: At the beginning of this school year, my adviser and I discussed the increase in usage of internal substitutes (teachers subbing for other teachers during off periods). After conducting preliminary research, I was astounded to find not only that internal substitutes made almost double the per-period rate of external substitutes, but that there was a statewide substitute teacher shortage that could be at the root of all of this. While writing this article, I had to constantly verify information I received from sources and conduct multiple interviews with each source to get responses to my newly uncovered information. I went into writing this story thinking that this was a minor issue that only DGN dealt with but, through diligent research, found a story that connected to a statewide problem.
Story: Walking into his English class fifth period, junior Brian Kosek was greeted by what had become the norm for the last two weeks: another substitute teacher. While his English teacher Lori Vanek was out for two weeks, the class was taught by a different substitute almost every day. “It was strange and hard to stay on task due to a different sub every day giving us instructions. Not many people got work done because the instructions given to us were vague and contradictory to what had been told to us,” Kosek said. “It was also very hard [to] understand the directions. Everyone was behind due to lack in structure.” Due to challenges finding substitute teachers, some classrooms in the district are filled with internal substitutes, who are regular teachers using their free periods to substitute for other teachers. Additionally, an increase last year in the number of periods substitute teachers in District 99 are required to cover has led to more chaotic schedules, with a single substitute sometimes managing the classes of multiple absent teachers. Despite the per-period wages for internal substitutes being significantly higher than that of regular substitute teachers, for the 2015-16 school year, District 99 spent significantly less on internal substitutes than on external ones: $125,373.42 on external substitutes and $43,211.01 on internal substitutes for DGN. Retired 30-year math and CTE teacher Chuck Hlavaty sees the recent district requirement that substitutes teach seven periods instead of six as a loss for substitutes, especially retired DGN teachers looking to teach lessons in their former subject area. “[The loss of a planning period] has been the biggest detriment, the biggest negative, in subbing,” Hlavaty said. “As a diligent teacher, I would read the book, read the assignment myself, work out the problems, and that takes prep time. They have taken away all prep time. So you have no time to prep to make a teaching presentation with confidence to the class. They’ve turned subbing from an opportunity for an experienced teacher to present a lesson and actually teach the students to babysitting. Now, you don’t have time to prepare, because instead of preparing for five classes [and a supervisory period], you no longer have a prep period to do that and you’re in two, three different departments just running around filling space.” According to assistant superintendent for human resources Peter Theis, the increase in substitute teachers’ loads from six periods to seven that occurred last year resulted in a daily pay increase from $96 to $105 for substitutes with no district 99 teaching experience. The pay for retired district 99 teachers increased from $104 to $105. The pay for retired teachers subbing in their former teaching area remained at $125. Theis came to the decision to increase the number of periods for substitutes after meeting with other human resources officers at a monthly Northwest Personnel Administrators meeting. “The idea being that daily subs are not preparing lessons or grading student work and thus did not need that extra period. A quick, informal show of hands [at the meeting] revealed that close to half the districts were doing this or preparing to implement a similar plan. I decided to follow this plan starting with the 2015-16 school year, and in a nod to the extra work that would be involved, raised the daily sub rate from $96 per day to $105 per day,” Theis said. Despite this increase in pay for external substitutes, internal ones are still needed frequently. English teacher Matthew Greaney, who had a planning period first hour last year, recalls being asked frequently to substitute for other teachers during his off period. “I’d say day-by-day there is a pretty constant flow of internal subbing,” Greaney said. “It is almost relative to the periods that you have free. When I had a first hour plan [period], I was getting asked to do it all the time. In most cases there are lots of people that are willing to take them, so I just let them go.” For a single period, a teacher internally subbing earns $35.11, while outside substitute teachers make either $15 or $17.85, per class period, depending on whether they are a retired district employee. When subbing for a full day, which is seven periods, a regular substitute earns $105 per day and a retired district 99 teacher earns $125. But according to Hlavaty, the biggest problem is not the lack of a pay increase, but the loss of a planning period, which makes it harder for substitute teachers to actually teach. “The retired teachers who worked in the district take it seriously, and I think it is disrespectful to run them around like chickens just to fill a spot. Instead of saving a penny, [the district is] spending more in the long run because they are defeating the purpose of the students getting a good lesson out of it. What is more important? Saving a few dollars or getting a skilled person to do a good job in the classroom to the benefit of the students?” Hlavaty asked. For a substitute with no teaching experience, per period wages at schools in the West Suburban Silver conference range from to $15 to $21. District 99 has the lowest per period rate for unexperienced substitutes of $15 per period, with the conference average at around $18 per period. Although District 99 is able to fill classrooms not covered by external substitutes, many schools in Illinois are struggling to make this happen. According to a press release from the Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents, 16 percent of absences are not covered by substitute teachers each week. This is even more of an issue in southern Illinois, where 26 percent of absences are not covered by substitute teachers. When classrooms cannot be covered by substitutes, schools often have to resort to using internal substitutes or combining classes. “Now that we know this is a significant problem in our schools, we need to work to make it easier for qualified people to become substitute teachers, especially in shortage areas downstate, and we need to work comprehensively to draw more young people into the demanding yet rewarding profession of teaching and mentoring our next generation,” IARSS president Jeff Vose said in the press release. According to Vose, recent legislation has worked to try and combat the substitute shortage by making it easier to become a substitute. “We had been working with the State Board of Education, legislators, stakeholder groups, principals associations, teacher unions and school administrator associations to get legislation changed to streamline the process to make it less difficult to become a substitute and to become a teacher. Senate bill 2912 was passed earlier this year.” Vose said. Due to important information being received close to our publication date, the Omega was unable to confidently include all information in this article at this time. This story will be updated as soon as possible. In-Depth by Abigail Murphy on Scribd
About: When asked my proudest piece of writing, I always say this editorial. The legal issues came from a survey I conducted for my article about gender-neutral bathrooms (see article here). Writing this editorial, I struggled with packing in and organizing years worth of censorship/prior review issues while attempting to write accurately and tightly. This article was circulated throughout the state to rally support for HB 5902 and gained much attention from community members, school faculty alike and students (For more on the article and legal problems, see Law & Ethics).
Just as an entrepreneurship class teaches students the ins and outs of the business world and an art class equips artists with techniques that will help them create a career out of their talent, a high school journalism program educates students by teaching them the skills that are practiced by professionals. The fundamental principles of journalism aren’t just meant to be taught, they’re meant to be practiced, and practiced without the fear of interference from outside bodies.
This being said, The Omega will never be able to properly inform the school community, give a voice to students, or practice sound journalism with the increasing burden of prior review and censorship that has occurred in recent months. The Supreme Court case that limits the rights of student press, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier, is confusing to say the least. The language of the decision leaves a lot of things open to interpretation and has been the heart of The Omega’s recent problems. This confusion over what rights administrators have is what has most likely led to the dramatic increase of journalistic restraint from administrators across the nation. Recently proposed Illinois House bill 5902, also known as the Speech Rights of Student Journalists Act, would improve this situation. Not only does this bill protect students’ rights to exercise freedom of speech and press, it also secures for students the right to determine what is the content of the publication. All that we have to say about this bill is this: it’s about time. Even under the Hazelwood standard, some administrators show more regard for students’ expression rights than others. Just because administrators have the right to invoke prior review, doesn’t mean they necessarily should. Excessive administrative involvement in the editorial process creates both an adversarial relationship between the student press and administration and self-censorship by the student journalists. Our coverage of school policies and events this year, such as the proposed Master Facility Plan, the different aspects of Red Ribbon Week and more recently the gender-neutral spaces, has received an unprecedented amount of prior review and censorship. Between the fall of 1999 and spring of 2011, The Omega received a total of three requests for prior review from administration. Last year, six articles were subject to prior review. So far this year, eight articles have been reviewed by administration before being published. When administrators make changes to school policy articles before they are published, it is a conflict of interest. In the majority of cases, it is against professional journalistic ethics to allow a person or group to preview an article about themselves before it is published. If we aren’t going to allow a sports team or any other person to make changes on an article about themselves, administrators should expect the same. We have a responsibility to readers to practice sound journalism by writing truthfully about topics that are important to our audience: the student body. Earlier this month, one of our editors-in-chief emailed a two-question survey asking about the student body’s views regarding proposed gender-neutral spaces. Finding two minor errors in the survey (slightly misleading wording of one of the questions and a problem with how the survey was set up that allowed users to send multiple responses and skew results), the editor planned on re-sending an updated version but was told by administrators to refrain from doing so because of a pending investigation into whether or not the survey violated board policy 7.15. Due to the fact that we did not receive an explanation for the restraint or a final decision on the investigation until more than a week later, (requiring us to push our publication back more than a week as well) the Omega considered this an act of unlawful censorship. According to administration, the survey was not considered appropriate for all students. However, the two questions on the survey only included information that was given to The Omega by the administration. In December, during the review of an article regarding the proposed Master Facility Plan renovations, administration requested for the reporter to change quotes said by a faculty member to ones that diluted the meaning of the original. The Omega contacted outside counsel and fought to publish the original quotes. The best way for administration to confront problems they might have with a school publication’s content is through letters to the editor and asking for corrections to be published in a later issue. This allows students to still report freely without administrative involvement but still gives the school the ability to voice any legitimate concerns they may have. Despite all our criticism of administrative involvement, we get where they are coming from. There is an understandable anxiety that comes with the possibility of a student newspaper embarrassing a school or administrator, but ultimately, there has got to be a little faith that student journalists will follow their own high ethical standards. Having a relationship with administration where there is a constant fear of unnecessary involvement leads student journalists to self-censor themselves, unconsciously taking away some of their own freedom of speech because of the fear of administrative backlash. But if the student press doesn’t say it, who else will? According to a survey conducted by the Brookings Institution, a mere 1.4 percent of news media coverage is devoted to education. If student journalists do not cover decisions and policy changes throughout the district, these important topics risk going unreported, also risking the possibility that the sole information about said topics is uneducated online gossip. There is a need in every school for a well-educated student press to set the record straight and be able to do legitimate reporting, have a reasoned opinion, and promote a more informed community. We have a crucial role in the marketplace of ideas and censoring does nobody any favors. In light of this, the Omega has decided that it is our obligation as journalists to inform our readers when these acts of prior review occur. As of this issue, all articles that have gone through the prior review process will be printed with an editor’s note, noting this fact. The Speech Rights of Student Journalists Act isn’t just something that we want, it is something that we need. In order for our rights to be secured and to do the best reporting possible, censorship cannot be a thing. As high school students negatively affected by acts of prior review and censorship, we know that our rights have been compromised. We need them back. Published: Online at dgnomega.org and in print on March 24, 2016.
About: My goal for my senior year was to improve my research skills. For this article, I contacted all of the schools in the conference to get comparative data, incorporated facts from a professional study and conducted numerous interviews to show all viewpoints.
When Nihal Isaac, mother of freshman Noah Isaac and senior Jade Isaac, spoke at the District 99 School Board meeting last year on Feb. 1, she had one goal: relieve her daughter’s winter break stress by moving final exams before break.
“Over the past three years, I have witnessed firsthand what having the semester end after winter break does to students,” Isaac said. “My daughter, Jade, spends anywhere from one-half to two-thirds of her winter break completing study guide packets for her classes in preparation for finals.” District 99 began work last December to create an early start calendar for this upcoming school year. The result led to a five day earlier 2017-2018 calendar that bumps finals before break and cuts the school stress out of the holiday season. However, less days in the generally mild temperatures of early June mean more days in the heat of August. Only 51% of D99 classrooms have air conditioning. A recent Harvard study suggests that student performance lowers with the increase of heat, raising concerns of how heat will impact student performance and school function during first months of school. The study, conducted by Harvard University PHD student Jisung Park, concluded that students who took the exam on a 90-degree day scored on average 4.5% lower than students who took the test on a 72-degree day. Also, the study showed it takes only five additional 80-degree days to see reduced performance of seven percent of a standard deviation. According to the website Weather Underground, this past August and September, 50% of the days hit heat indexes of 80 degrees or higher, with the average at 82.5 degrees. This means that if students had started on Aug. 18 this year, as they will next year, 22 out of the 44 days from then until the end of September would have been hot enough to decrease student performance. The Master Facility Plan, a facility improvement plan for District 99 schools, involves complete air conditioning for both DGN and DGS. However, the district has yet to choose a finalized plan or a set year for the improvements to take place. According to assistant principal Ken Sorensen, for the time being, the school will use fans and ventilation to cool the building. According to principal Janice Schwarze, heat factored into the calendar decision and the district considered data from other districts who switched to early start calendars without air conditioning. “Really in the end what we found was that there were few concerns, the heat being one of them, but that other schools had managed to overcome them and were happy that they did. Other schools have been on an early start calendar and not all of them had air conditioning,” Schwarze said. Teachers’ union vice president Lois Graham questions how the lack of air conditioning will affect the school with the earlier start date. “It’s just unacceptable for students and it’s unacceptable for faculty and staff … Almost all the other schools in the area have air conditioning and considering this is a district with only two buildings, [the district needs to] find a way to take care of it,” Graham said. Junior Evie Brindl believes that, while the finals after break are acceptable, the heat is not. “On hot days, it’s hard for me to stay concentrated on my work when I keep sticking to my desk. I feel really gross and distracted,” Brindl said. Schwarze, along with multiple other faculty and staff, were part of a calendar committee that reviewed data and multiple versions of the schedule before coming to a final draft. “This was a conversation that occurred with a lot of people over a long period of time,” principal Janice Schwarze said. “While students might be uncomfortable for those few days, the tradeoff of having those two weeks where they are not having to worry, we felt, was worth the trade off.” In preparation for the board meeting last February, Isaac researched for information regarding the heat during mid August. She considered this information in her argument to the board. “I thought it was very important for students to have a mental break during the two weeks of winter break to decompress and recharge,” Isaac said. “… We have had hotter days than [those in August] in September. Weather is unpredictable, yet the benefits to our students of having an early start calendar are very predictable and tangible.” Published: Online at dgnomega.org and in print on Nov. 9, 2016
About: This article is a feature piece on a student who, despite being wheel-chair bound, is arguably more involved in athletics than any other student. He has developed himself into a brand at DGN with his independent sports broadcasting/announcing work. I aimed to capture the unique atmosphere Zain brings to the school and channel his inspiring passion for sports into the article.
Under the lights of a varsity football game, helmet-clad players sprawl across the sideline. Running backs, linemen and wide receivers all wait for their turn on the field. While they work to score touchdowns and halt the opposing team’s offense on the field, another member of the team plays a different role from the sideline. That player is junior Zain Bando.
With his diagnosis of cerebral palsy, a congenital disorder that affects movement, muscle efficiency that left Bando wheelchair bound, Bando found an alternative way to express his die-hard love of sports and play a role on school sports teams: social media. In his two and a half years so far in high school, Bando worked for a variety of teams from volleyball to baseball. He hopes that these experiences and his passion for sports will lead him into a similar career in the future. “My first love of sports really was just watching a Bears game and I really didn’t know anything about football. I just thought it was one of the most exciting things I’d ever seen and I just wanted to learn more about it,” Bando said. In middle school, Bando began his coverage of sports, when a teacher encouraged him to start his own channel for sports announcing. Since middle school, Bando’s career has grown to include both announcing and working social media for high school sports teams. Along with his work as public address announcer for volleyball this year, Bando ran his own live update twitter account for the varsity football team called Trojan FB Live. “What he has done with [twitter] has been phenomenal,” varsity football coach Keith Lichtenberg said. “Not only does he update games but he provides video of things and makes these great video recaps of each game. He’s really just been talented. It has allowed him to do what he likes but it’s also promoting our program. The kids love it because they see pictures of themselves and so that’s been great.” Varsity football player senior Jack Casey, a close friend of Bando’s, recognizes the importance of Bando’s role on the team. “He was the first one on the sideline to pick us up when we were down and the first one to celebrate with us after a big play,” Casey said. “He was a team first guy and would do whatever he could to help us or any of the coaches out. All the guys made sure that he was a part of the team and that we embraced him into our family as if he was suiting up with us every day.” In the past, Bando attempted modified sports that he could play with his disability, however, he soon realized that he was more passionate about sports in a different way. “Honestly, [with] everything that I’ve learned in the last two and a half years or so, I’m a little bit more passionate about reporting sports than actually playing [sports]. I’ve realized that my limitations have gotten in the way of that and I’ve kind of just set that aside and focused on what I can do.” Bando’s twitter for the football team Trojans FB Live gained 250 followers by the end of the season. Bando daily posted a variety of content including recap videos live updates, photos and videos. “He brings a positive attitude every day. He promotes our program in a great way and he is someone, as a coach, we love to be around and the players do to. Everyone has to fit a role and he fits a pretty darn good role,” Lichtenberg said. Along with reporting for the football team, Bando also worked as the varsity volleyball team’s public address announcer during games. According to Bando, working with this sport was a step out of his comfort zone that he came to love. Girls’ volleyball manager junior Evie Brindl recalls the beginning of her friendship with Bando. “I met Zain freshman year in gym class. He was wearing a hawks shirt and I was wearing a jersey. We both complimented each other and went on and on about hockey because we both love it,” Brindl said. “He was always so involved with our team. From announcing the starting line up to his awesome match point calls.” Starting in November, Bando began similar social media work for the boys’ varsity basketball team. During the season, he hopes to put out even more content and include more last second videos and updates, Bando said. Varsity basketball coach Jim Thomas recognizes the benefits of added media coverage which results in exposure of players to college scouts. “I just think that it’s great that he has kind of taken on that role throughout our school,” Thomas said. I’ve heard from many people just in the short time he has been on varsity how awesome it is to have those score updates or pictures of practice and warmups so people are really taking to having him do that for us.” Along with his work with high school sports teams, Bando attended a number of events over the past two and years that give him a glimpse into his possible future field of work. These include the Chicago Cubs Gala during the World Series and visiting the New York City office of Bleacher Report, a prominent sports media organization. “It’s just given me a lot more inspiration to know that it’s very possible and I’m hoping that one day I get to work in a field like that because it’s everything I’ve enjoyed for a very long time. There aren’t too many words to describe all of these different things that I get to do. I just think that they’re all really cool and I hope it leads to something huge,” Bando said. As players from both teams line up at the end of the game to shake hands, there work is done for the day. For Bando, his work for the team and his career have just begun. Published: Online at dgnomega.org and in print on Dec. 14, 2016
About: After reading Koren Zailckas' book in preparation for her Red Ribbon Week presentation, I was excited to write a piece connecting student experiences with the authors. However, the presentation and the somewhat misleading drug and alcohol awareness campaign by the school led me to change the article's focus. I used the same data as the drug and alcohol campaign and diverse student quotes in response to this. A note at the end was used to provide further clarity to the data. In addition, obtaining the drug and alcohol campaign data required a FOIA request and the article went through prior review (see Law & Ethics)
Author of New York Times best-selling memoir "Smashed", Koren Zailckas, spoke to DGN on Oct. 16 at this year’s Red Ribbon Week assembly in the Clarence Johnson auditorium. This double second period assembly was only one component in the school’s broader drug and alcohol prevention program.
Zailckas’ book chronicles the events of her decade-long struggle with alcohol, which began at age 14 and continued until 23. Almost 10 years after she began drinking, Zailckas decided tell her side of the binge-drinking phenomenon that is spreading amongst today’s youth, especially young women. “At 23, I was just beginning to quit drinking and beginning to reflect on how my drinking had been really an expression of my unhappiness and my lack of confidence,” Zailckas said. “I really published Smashed because I wanted to offer the younger women’s perspective. The only people who were talking about why girls like myself were drinking were [college professors] who had been removed from the college drinking scene for quite a while.” Recently out of college, sober, and living in Manhattan, Zailckas couldn’t shake one specific drunken memory from her mind of a time when she almost died and got her stomach pumped at the age of 16. This memory that she hadn’t thought about in years eventually became a chapter in what is now her published memoir. “We liked that she had a similar experience to our students,” student assistance coordinator Keith Bullock said. “She had a suburban upbringing and she also primarily abused alcohol in high school and in college. It wasn’t so much that her substance abuse progressed to something extreme like intravenous drug use, so we thought that her experience would resonate more with our students if they themselves have experimented [with alcohol] or have a friend or a parent who struggles with alcoholism.” According to DGN’s results from the Illinois Youth Survey in 2014 (a self-report survey that gathers information on a wide variety of health and social topics) an average of 18% of students binge drink (consume five or more drinks in a row) like Zailckas did, which is close to the state average of 18.25% and the Dupage county average of 17.5%*. Students who reported drinking in the last 30 days used alcohol more than any other substance, with types of alcohol like beer (from bottles or cans) and liquor (vodka, whiskey, etc.) reported as the most commonly used. The IYS is a self-report survey that gathers information on a wide variety of health and social topics that schools distribute every two years. Although schools are not required to administer the survey, some schools, including DGN, give out the survey to be able to receive school-specific results. One way that the district uses the IYS results is for the “most teens” marketing campaign. According to the Student Assistance page on both schools’ websites, the campaign emphasizes evidence that proves that most students are not using substances, purposefully challenging the assumption that “everyone is doing it” and uses IYS results to support their claims. Numerous posters and infographics throughout the school and online present IYS statistics using a social norms approach. According to the National Social Norms Institute, this approach utilizes data to combat misperceptions regarding how many people areactually using substances. Operation Snowball, a leadership program that focuses on drug and alcohol prevention, shares values with DGN’s “most teens” campaign. The 2015 fall Snowball directors helped out with Zailckas’ presentation by introducing her and facilitating a short question and answer session after her presentation. “The name Operation Snowball comes from the idea of a snowball effect; as one person adopts a certain lifestyle, it leads to more people adopting that same lifestyle,” Snowball director senior Maria Derrig said. “The different parts of RRW do just that. Everything students see around school that tie into ‘most teens’ or PBIS lessons is to promote healthy lifestyles.” Throughout the years that DGN has held events for Red Ribbon Week, numerous speakers have come in to talk to students about their experiences with substance abuse. In 2013, former NBA player Chris Herren spoke to the school about his experience with hard drugs. This year, Zailckas had a more intimate presentation in the auditorium, rather than the main gym like Herren. “My overall reaction to Koren’s presentation was that she seemed very relatable. Her story seemed very practical and wasn’t very extreme,” Snowball director senior Ben Goodell said. “In the past, we’ve had speakers with pretty amazing stories. These stories were effective, but it is also good to look at the issue from another point of view. I felt like the story she shared could easily happen to many people.” According to book club member freshman Marion Deal, who read Smashed, Zailckas’ presentation lacked depth, which may have led to some students’ negative reaction to the presentation. “She brushed off some hideous events with an almost cavalier attitude, and seemed to be lacking a comprehension of just how impactful her experiences were. I believe that, though she had the experience necessary to present at Red Ribbon Week, she didn’t have the depth of hindsight and self-clarity that was also needed,” Deal said. Moving forward, Bullock is looking for other effective ways of sharing the IYS information to serve the overall purpose of helping teens make their own healthy choices. *IYS averages were calculated using a holistic approach, giving each percent the same weight in the average. DGN numbers were comprised of all grade levels, while county and state numbers were based solely on 10 and 12 grade averages, due to the fact that those two grades were required by the survey provider. Published: Online at dgnomega.org and in print on Nov. 5, 2015 Author speaks to D99 schools about alcohol by Abigail Murphy on Scribd
About: With the problem of fake news becoming mainstream, I struggled to come up with a unique way of writing about the issue. After attending the NSPA/JEA convention in Indianapolis, I was inspired to write in an alternative letter form that was outside of my comfort zone. The "letter" is a traditional newspaper writing to media consumers, begging them to not end the relationship.
Dear media consumer,
I know that we have been going through a rough patch in our relationship, and I just want to make amends. You think that I haven’t been the most reliable partner but, news flash, I’m a heck of a lot better than your new sweetheart. You’re trying to leave me for some sketchy click-bait news site you found on Facebook just because she tells you what you want to hear. You may not always like what I have to say, but I tell the truth, so please, Baby, don’t let me go. Times are changing, but that doesn’t mean we have to. According to MSNBC, 62 percent of Americans claim they get their news from social media, where lousy news sites like your new honey are constantly trending. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims that the notion that his website connects consumers with sites like the lover you’re trying to replace me with is “a pretty crazy idea.” Our country relies on news outlets like me to report accurately, and if you leave me in the dust, who knows what will happen? I may not give you what you want but I give you what you deserve: the truth. Is it because I’m not always the best at seeing both sides? I really do try to be unbiased, but I’m far from perfect. I’m written by humans, for heaven’s sake. If you are mad at me for not being perfect, just look at who you’re trying to replace me with. According to a Buzzfeed article, the top 20 performing fake election articles gained over a million more shares, comments and reactions than the top 20 performing legitimate election articles. The point of reporting the news is to inform accurately, so there is no point if the news organization people trust are full of lies. I may not be as popular as your two-faced sweetheart, but I promise that I’ll treat you better than she ever will. You need to realize who has your best interest at heart here. Is it because I don’t always draw you in? Fake news sites are constantly trying to lure you in, whispering sweet nothings in the form of click-bait headlines like “Pope endorses Donald Trump” and “Jay-Z, Beyonce buy the rights to Confederate Flag”. But I’m telling you, my honesty in our relationship is better than her flashy headlines and fake sources any day. Without your love and support, my future looks pretty bleak. With more and more people like you falling for fake news , what lies ahead for traditional news is unclear. Off the record, you actually need me more than I need you. Because yeah, I’ve got more issues than the New York Times and I don’t always tell you what you want to hear, but our relationship is crucial for our country. Ditch that ugly site you found on Facebook and stay with me. Sincerely, The traditional newspaper Published: Online at dgnomega.org and in print on Dec. 14, 2016 Give traditional newspapers a chance by Abigail Murphy on Scribd |
