Hi Firebirds,

Thanks for taking a look at Issue 6! Please know that what is inside is created and designed for you, and that you are placed at the forefront when we are considering what to cover. It is the students who create the flurry of activity inside and outside of our walls, who make this place hum. You all make our news magazine possible and worthwhile.

It is no secret that we explore some difficult and controversial topics in our paper. I also understand that not everyone may agree with what we have to say, and that’s okay. However, I implore you to be an open book and listen to what we have to say through an unfiltered lens.

Let’s face it: we are living amidst a constitutional crisis. It’s impossible to talk about all of it inside of a page, and that’s by design; the zone is flooded. The collapse of Congress, meaning their refusal to perform their check and balance role, allows our president to do whatever he pleases.

Our great grandparents and grandparents fought tyranny overseas. Unfortunately, we have to fight it here. In America. In what’s supposed to be the land of promise. In what you’ve been told since you were a little kid was the land of opportunity. Unfortunately, right now that promise and opportunity is strictly accessible to the 1%. The world’s richest men are taking on the world’s poorest children.

I understand that it’s overwhelming, or it upsets you that our generation is left to put out raging fires and weather high tides, but there’s no time to sulk over what is happening in our country. That is the only sure way to promise our demise. We have to fix it.

Now more than ever, you carry the responsibility to seek and expose the truth. You must stay informed and engaged, discriminating between what is true and false. This is a call to arms to my generation. Please act now; there is no time left to wait.

To my staff — a free and independent press is going to become one of the last guard rails. That is becoming more obvious every day. Continue to fight with all you have.

Best,