Each month the school newspaper staff does their best to put out a good
quality newspaper. However, each month it seems that the newspaper staff gets
more negative feedback than they do positive. Students and teachers alike have
their critiques and opinions on how it should have looked and what its contents
should have been.

Although everyone is entitled to their own opinion, it is unfair to judge the
members and product of the school journalism class unless one has experienced
the class for his or her self.  Each year there are several returning students,
but the majority of the class is newcomers. Since it is a student-run class, it
is the job of the veterans to teach  the new students the monthly process of how
to write a story and how to use the programs in a very short period of time. 
There are students that take the class because they are interested in
learning about journalism. On the other hand, there are students that take the
class because they believe it will be an easy, do nothing, free credit class. 
Overall, the journalism class has smaller numbers than the average class at Post
Falls High School, and the students who do not put effort into the paper make
the entire process even more difficult.

Having a group of people all meet the same deadlines becomes nearly
impossible because events being covered do not always happen in a convenient
time frame, and students often find the homework from other classes more
important. This is the reason that the monthly Trojan Times is not printed
exactly every thirty or thirty-one days.

Equipment and unexpected events are other reasons for the Trojan Times’
imperfections. Students do not always write their stories. School computers do
not always do what one wishes them to do. The most recent file is not always
saved. One may be new to the program being used. Testing may cause access to
computers and printers denied. The list of inconveniences can go on.

The final edit is done by all of the class’ editors, the story writers, and
the teacher and takes up several days of class and a whole lot of paper. No
matter how many edits are done or however many eyes search the paper for
mistakes, there are mistakes that are not discovered until after the paper is
being passed out. It is often a difficult task to find mistakes in a paper one
has already edited numerous times before.

There is always room for improvement, and the journalism class will be the
first people to admit that. If someone has a suggestion, the journalism class is
grateful that someone cares enough to try and help them out. Until a person has
actually experienced the class for his or her self, one should not entirely
judge or mock the newspaper or any member of its staff.