Letter from the Editor

Dear Titans,

Welcome to the Gunn Oracle’s first week of school issue, and welcome to the 2020-2021 school year.

To put it succinctly, life has changed in profound and unpredictable ways. These past few weeks and months, as The Oracle staff has circumvented and overcome numerous obstacles to create, produce and publish the issue you’re holding in your hands, we’ve often been reminded of that reality. From enduring glitchy Zoom meetings to putting finishing touches on page designs at 1 a.m., being an Oracle journalist has never been a more demanding, challenging and exhilarating endeavor.

At this time, it feels appropriate to remind all of our readers what exactly this endeavor is driven by. Simply put, The Oracle is news written by the students, for the students. Throughout the course of what is undoubtedly going to be a tumultuous year, the ethos and principles of The Oracle will stay the same. We’re dedicated to providing timely, insightful and thought-provoking coverage; we’re dedicated to sparking much-needed conversations and inspiring paradigm shifts. We’re dedicated to the truth.

Conversely, what will change and will continue to change is how we’re best fulfilling those ideals. We’re rethinking how we best engage and interact with you, our readers. This past semester, we began revamping our social media feed as a way to directly involve you in our storytelling process, and we’re doubling down on those efforts this semester. (By the way: follow @gunnoracle on Instagram, if you haven’t already!) We’re ushering in new designs for our website, and we’re reevaluating the most important priorities to focus on while pushing the envelope.

And, of course, we’re always looking to recruit new talent. If you’re even a little interested in writing, reporting, design or photography—or if you’re simply interested in telling impactful stories, working in a fast-paced newsroom and finding a vibrant community of like-minded peers, join us. We’d love to have you.

That’s a quick summary of what we’re doing on our part. To our readers—and at the risk of sounding like an advertisement—one of the best methods to support us and our mission is through subscribing to The Oracle. This issue that we’ve mailed home to every single student is a preview of the interesting, diverse and nuanced content to come in the following weeks and months, and we’d be thrilled to deliver future copies of The Oracle straight to your doorstep, especially since we won’t be able to distribute our issues on campus. To get started, visit the Gunn webstore.

A closing thought: former Washington Post publisher Philip L. Graham once remarked that journalism serves as the first rough draft of history. At this point in our shared history, national news is dominating the airwaves and social media right now. We’re facing a near-unprecedented global pandemic, a national reckoning over racial equality and a deeply divisive presidential election with momentous ramifications—all at once.

Yet, even in the turmoil that is 2020, I urge you to remember the news that impacts you the most—I urge you to invest in hyper-local, student-centric journalism. Follow along as The Oracle chronicles how the Gunn community navigates the difficult, daunting months ahead; witness The Oracle document a year unlike any other. Join in as The Oracle captures each controversial debate, each debilitating setback, each tenuous step forward.

In the upcoming year, this is where the story of Gunn will be written. Readers, we can’t wait to get started.

—Joshua Yang, EIC 2020-2021