For the past three years, it’s been a great pleasure to work for The Californian as a writer and editor.

I’ve had a wonderful experience working with my peers, and each issue we’ve published is an accomplishment in which we take great pride.

But even the best school papers should have the ability to make fun of themselves once in a while. So, as a labor of love, I present to our readers: The Roast of The Californian.

If We Write One More Story About the New Phone Policies, I Swear

Recycling story ideas. Hopefully, readers haven’t noticed, but we are quite guilty of doing this.

Getting a paper together every month – more like a month and a half – isn’t easy. There are a lot of story ideas to come up with and a lot of space to fill. To be honest, Cal High can be pretty boring, so there’s really only so much to write about.

So we have our backups, stories we can milk when original ideas run dry because they do a good job at staying semi-relevant.

The best part about these topics is that there’s even more juicy content we can get out of them by having news, opinions, and humor pieces dedicated to them.

Classes have phone jails? Well, here’s information about the awesome policy, an opinion about this amazing policy, and us making fun of this great policy every student loves.

This year, we were very original by running seven stories relating to AI.

Some issues, we seemed more like The CalifornAI than The Californian.

But this is a great deal for everyone involved. By being resourceful with our story topics, we get to fill space, and readers get to see stories which mildly interest them.

The system would be great, if it weren’t for the one corrupt cog in the machine that screws it up for everyone. A responsible journalist asked an awful question: “Didn’t we write about this last issue?”

Yes, we probably did. We probably wrote about the same topic before, too, and to be honest, we’re probably sick and tired of covering it. In the end, that well-intentioned journalist definitely helps us more than they hurt us.

Doesn’t mean the editors appreciate them much. Readers don’t know how hard it is to come up with original story ideas. That one time we wrote about “six-seven?” Those were desperate times.

Editors use Spellcheck Challenge: Impossible

Speaking about editors, we mak mistakekes sometimes.

To filll wreaders in, even with the several stages of editing that each story goes through, it’s not uncammon to have a tippo or too in an article. Just a small mistake from a writer or a detail a editor overloooked. Which is y spellcheck is so important.

It’s an ez tool to use, a quick control plus I, and everything is nice and tighty. Yet, editors consistently fail utilize this tool. The explanation? It could be their prestigious position as editors that inflated their egos. Or it could be that sum forget, emphasis on sum. I don’t.

Seriously, I could be talking about anyeone.

Butt it’s more accurate to say that this curse of being unable to press down on too keys has been passed down through ganerations. Looking back, it is emprissive how consistently throughout the years this newsppaper has made spelling mistakes.

So it’s not my fault or my fellow editors. We were destined to fail from the start.

My only hope is that by acknowledging the horror of this malignant curse, the next generation will finally escapi its grasp.

We’re Losing 90% Of Our Staff After This Year.

Seriously, readers, students, parents, dogs with duck costumes, whomever is reading this. We won’t have a next generation of editors or journalists if no one signs up.

The current staff heading The Californian is old. It’s not an exaggeration for comedic effect when I say a good 90% of our editors are heading out the door. Apparently, we’re graduating or something.

It’s counterintuitive for readers to feel compelled to sign up for this class, given that this story is dedicated to making fun of this paper. But hear me out, guys, Mr. Barr’s room is pretty cool. Mr. Barr, not so much.

What else, um, you need a college-prep credit to graduate. This class gives that credit!

OK, I give up. But the paper will survive, it has for years.

So don’t feel pressured to sign up. The only exception is if you draw. If you have ever put pen to paper and made even something resembling an illustration, the newspaper NEEDS you.

Please, I could pay you. (For legal reasons, that is a joke).

Greatest Hits

Rapid fire, some nitpicks about The Californian I can point out. After all, in about two weeks I’m out of here suckers!

We have at least three dead social media accounts. But do we really need a YouTube account? No, the answer is no.

No one knows the password to our official gmail, including editors.

Every day someone is yelling across the room asking for it, begging, crying to the select superior few who remember the treasured code. It really does get that dramatic. I should consider investing in earplugs.

Editors forget to backup their pages onto the flash drive, a lot. Of course, this doesn’t include me.

And it begs the question, why are we still forced to backup anyting on a flash drive?

I repeat, we wrote a story about “six-seven,” do you know how indicative that is of the death of journalism? There’s no good stories anymore. No serious journalists who want to write about what’s really important. Who came up with that story idea again? Oh, it was me.

There’s at least three news organizations with our exact same name. We are creative masterminds.

But on serious note, I will miss working for this paper and I’m sure many of my fellow seniors will agree. Saying goodbye is hard, but this was the best way I could send off such a great organization by permanently damagin its reputation.