We all miss attending school each day.  We miss the small moments we shared with classmates, teachers, and friends in the hallway, classrooms, and on the athletic fields.  Still, there are glimpses of the joy of the Sacred Heart Greenwich community each day as we meet in our new, virtual classrooms.  As staff of the King Street Chronicle, there is nothing we miss more than the newsroom, but each day, we are working to cultivate a similar, communal environment in our virtual newsroom in order to unite the Sacred Heart community with our daily publications. 

We are reporters, interviewers, videographers, and much more.  We chase stories and craft them inside the comfort of our collective space, the newsroom.  Although the room itself is home to many other Upper School classes, it transforms every time we meet.  Once a day, it becomes our space, a gathering of journalistic minds and collaborative reporters. 

We miss sitting together in the newsroom in the square shape the desks form in the room, working on articles, videos, podcasts, interviews, and emails.  We miss watching a story come to fruition, celebrating as it progresses from a pitch to a draft, and a draft to a published piece, acknowledging its release with the ring of a gong and the drumroll of the staff. 

We miss these small moments because they embody our mission as a student-driven newspaper.  As our mission statement writes, “[t]he King Street Chronicle’s main goal is to inform readers about issues and events that are pertinent to the school community.”  We use our newsroom to collaborate and follow our mission of bringing readers constant and consistent content. 

That being said, we are ever so fortunate that this can continue.  Despite the fact that we are not within the comfort of our newsroom, we are still dedicated to delivering stories to our audience. 

While we are not in the newsroom every day as we used to be, we are developing a temporary, online replacement in which the sentiments stay the same.  During our class meetings over Zoom Communications, Incorporated, we cherish the continuation of energy that each of us brings to class each day.  Although we are not physically together, our shared mindsets replicate the passion and dedication we have grown as a staff this year. 

Zoom allows us to maintain our communication.  Virtually, we can still brainstorm ideas together, and we can still publish content every day.  Although we cannot be together, our daily publications stay parallel to our mission to “emphasize the relationship between our school and the world.”  Best of all, we still get to see each other and enjoy the company and community of the King Street Chronicle staff.  Despite a new environment, our love for reporting the news and telling the stories will never vanish from our journalism family. 

In the midst of our rapidly-changing reality, we thank you for your readership.  We will continue to bring you constant stories, videos, podcasts, polls, editorials, and everything in between.  Together, we are channeling the joy and dedication of the Sacred Heart community to build our new, virtual newsroom and continue to share stories that hold the power to unite our community, regardless of our physical distance.

Featured Image by Sydney Gallop ’20