By Caelan Saunders

Editor-in-Chief

Honesty is one of the most important qualities in a person. Whether it’s honesty on a test, in a relationship, or even with yourself, it’s an important part of anyone’s character.

In fact, character is in itself just honesty. Character is defined as what you do when no one is looking or judging, and I know that often times that is the harder route. It’s why we have white lies in society. Having true excellent character is more difficult than some people would let on. It’s more than just right and wrong; life is complicated and it’s because of this fact that we tell white lies.

However, how often do we do this? How often do we lie to our peers, our family, teachers, friends, etc.? It doesn’t matter why we do it, whether or not there was good intentions involved, we do do it. We lie. Probably more often then we should. It’s important that we reflect on that issue at least every once in a while to make sure that we’re still being true to ourselves. It’s important that these lies that we say to be nice or avoid conflict don’t get out of hand. What we say and what we do is who we are and it’s important not to lose sight of that.

Being a part of any type of media like The Jag or JagTV, it’s essential for us to be honest, as it’s our duty to provide truthful and factual evidence to our readers or viewers. This concept of honesty is going to be especially important this year for the newspaper. It’s our job to accurately represent what happens at South, and before we’ve never taken a critical look at the ongoings of South despite a critical student population. In order for us to be honest, we can’t just look at one side of issues or events. We can’t just report everything that’s right. I believe it’s important that we discuss issues with how things are run, how things are implemented, how we can change what happens here. We have a Student Senate for more than just coming up with ideas for spirit weeks and being in charge of prom. If we want to live up to our motto of “Building Legacy” then we need to do more than just what happened last year. We need to build our own legacy, make our own changes, do what we feel is best. The only way we can accomplish this goal is by being honest. Sometimes it’s brutally. However, the truth must be told and as editor-in-chief of this newspaper I’m making it both my personal goal and my staff’s goal to accurately represent you as our reader. Whether that’s to give praise for something truly spectacular, or to criticize a poorly run event, we will report it.

So as the year progresses, as we go out and interview students, it’s important that we hear the full story and maybe not just what we want to hear. Be honest with us, be honest with your school, and most importantly, be honest with yourself.