Audrey Chang (’24) takes her senior portrait. Chang will be serving as the Editor-in-Chief of The Oracle for the 2023-2024 school year. Photo by Ultimate Exposures. (Graphic Illustration by Audrey Chang)

Hello, Archer community! I hope you all had a great summer and enjoyed relaxing, repeatedly watching “Barbie” and spending time with your friends, family and pets (my dog Wiggles definitely loved sun-bathing.)  

My name is Audrey Chang, and I am the 2023-24 Editor-in-Chief of The Oracle. I am writing this letter to introduce myself and share with you some of my goals for The Oracle this year.

I’ve always loved writing as a way to tell stories and express my ideas and interests, and I anticipated journalism to be an opportunity to learn another form of it. Returning to school after a year-and-a-half of online learning sophomore year, I was excited to join The Oracle to work with others who channel their passion for writing towards a broader purpose to inform, connect and highlight members of the Archer community.

From my very first journalism class, I immediately felt welcomed and grateful to be part of such a warm and passionate community. For my first big feature, I wrote about the psychological impact of food allergies, which I’ve struggled with throughout my life. As other students approached me to share similar experiences, I was inspired by journalism’s ability to encourage discourse, allow issues to assume broader significance and strengthen connections within a community.

As I continued writing, I became most drawn to news articles. Channeling my love for current events, I became the News Editor my junior year. I was especially excited to help support and guide other students through the news-writing process as past editors had done for me.

Looking back on my Oracle journey so far, I’m incredibly grateful for all I have learned, not only about writing but also gaining a deeper understanding of collaboration, leadership and journalism’s fundamental role in democracy. I’m also grateful for the way journalism has informed my perspective: I now look at everything as news and feel that through reporting, I’ve gotten to further connect with the Archer community.

Regarding The Oracle as a whole, I wanted to share some exciting updates about our staff and goals this year! Our staff has 24 members, with a great mix of eight editors, eight senior reporters and eight intro students. We have an incredible editorial board composed of six juniors and two seniors, and we are adding back the position of Managing Editor, which will be taken on by junior Ella Schwartz. 

We are also so excited to welcome five new columnists: three seniors and two juniors, who will be writing about topics ranging from politics to AI to mental health. In addition to our podcast, The Scoop, we are launching a podcast program similar to the style of our columns, where students will be producing four individual, regular podcasts to share their passions for film, race’s role in pop culture and other topics.

Along with expanding our multimedia coverage, one of our goals is to continue growing our social media presence to further connect with our audience, specifically focusing on our Instagram and Facebook accounts. We will also be starting an Oracle TikTok this year. If you haven’t already, you can follow our accounts to keep up-to-date with all that we are covering.

Finally, we want to serve as a platform to represent you and your voices. If you have an opinion or message to share with the community, you can submit a letter to the editor through the “Submit Letter” tab on our site. We always love to hear your opinions, so please feel free to comment on our articles and reach out by emailing [email protected] with any questions, comments or feedback.

Thank you so much for reading, and here’s to an amazing year!

Sincerely,

Audrey Chang

Editor-in-Chief 2023-2024