Welcome

Letter From the Editor

November 5, 2024

With the 2024-25 school year well underway, The Odyssey Newspaper has been working since September to publish our very first edition of this academic year. 

My name is Fernando Leiva and I am the new Editor-in-Chief of The Odyssey Newspaper at Grant. With our previous Editors Nensi Hayotsyan and Mariam Mkrtchian having graduated, I along with our wonderful advisor, Ms. Brenholt, and hard-working staff will be undertaking the responsibility of expanding the size of the newspaper and improving the consistency of the stories we publish. 

Having joined the newspaper during my freshman year of high school, I fell in love with writing and journalism because I saw how impactful it could be for students to write about the stories that mattered to them and their communities. Whether that is writing about American politics, school events, or sports, we hope to make The Odyssey a space for students to publish and showcase their own news-oriented writing. 

Although The Odyssey is not a professional newspaper, we abide by conventional English and journalistic standards of structure and fact-based writing. We require all our writers covering events outside of Grant to cite credible sources to bolster the claims made in their articles, which are edited and proofread by the Editor-in-Chief and Advisor before publication. 

With our first edition being published during Election Day, we understand the contentious atmosphere currently felt throughout The United States, particularly among high school students and teenagers. In spite of this, we hope to tackle such topics impartially and respectfully, while highlighting how these events affect modern-day high schoolers. 

As with any student organization, our newspaper is constantly striving to grow and improve itself. The Odyssey is at its core, a publication, but we also hope to provide students with an environment where they can grow, learn more about news, and hone their writing skills. 

At the end of the day, we do not expect our staff to be knowledgeable in all aspects of journalism, but rather that they actively try to improve their writing and consistently show up to meetings. Our newspaper is open to the entire Lancer community, and we hope to continue expanding our coverage beyond writing and into other forms of digital media. In an age of misinformation and fake news, student journalism is one of the pillars that sustain our democracy and promote healthy debate. 

I look forward to a great year!

Fernando Leiva

Editor-in-Chief