In light of the ongoing criticism of the media, our staff decided we wanted this issue of the paper to be centered around journalism, with the intent of clarifying for our community the goals of The Dispatch. Our purpose as a student-led newspaper is to serve the student body by informing, challenging, and highlighting different parts of the school. 

We aim to spark conversation through the work we publish. We are here to reflect the voices of the Bowie community through addressing student concerns and to help bridge the gap between the administration and students by giving an in-depth look into decisions that are made. The Dispatch aspires to continue building credibility as a source that students, parents, administration, and staff can look to.

In our quest to do so, we encourage public feedback. Journalists exist to inform the public and should be held accountable for the work that they put out. At The Dispatch, we try to uphold this standard by reaching out to multiple sources, researching and fact-checking, and by having multiple people read stories prior to publishing.

Even so, given that members of staff are scholastic journalists, mistakes are made, and we’d like a chance to rectify the situation and grow as staffers from feedback. All members of staff can be contacted through their staff emails [email protected] or through our adviser Michael Reeves at [email protected]. In addition, if readers have any suggestions of what they wish to see covered, we ask that they reach out through those emails as well.

In this issue, to better explain how and why we do the things we do in The Dispatch, we also decided to define what different sections of the paper are, so that readers know what to expect from each section. For example, readers should know that news stories are meant to be objective and informative, whereas commentary stories serve as a place for a writer to take a stance on a subject. This information can be found in the “What is?” description boxes throughout the publication.

The Dispatch is committed to asking questions and presenting the facts of various issues. Now more than ever, we are pushing our staff to cover hard hitting, relevant topics and in doing so, we acknowledge that readers may be discontent with what they read.

Despite the scrutiny of fake news casting journalists as ‘the enemy of the people,’ as student journalists we are determined to retain the trust that our community has in us and can only guarantee we will do everything we can to report honestly.