Today, this morning, around eight thirty in the morning, in Mrs. Hurlimann’s classroom, at Sage Creek High School, in the School District of Carlsbad Unified School District, in the city of Carlsbad, in the County of San Diego, in the state of California, not the commonwealth of California (such as the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Commonwealth of Virginia), in the sovereign nation of the United States of America, our school news organization, known as The Sage, headed by Mrs. Hurlimann, introduced a new word count minimum for all future articles which may be written going forward, from now on.
This article, in fact, is included in this minimum.
Unfortunately, the title and the captions do not count towards this minimum of words required in all future The Sage articles.
The word count minimum which has been very recently included in our program has been met with a variety of many different opinions.
When asked about the new minimum, Broadcast Co-Producer, former actor in “Urinetown: The Musical,” and Author of “To My Friend, Milo,” Ashley Jew, said the following statement:
“I don’t write articles in general.”
When the News Editor of The Sage, Jack Spark, was asked a similar question, he expressed a large amount of frustration.
“I can’t write that much,” said the News Editor, “The news just isn’t that interesting.”
He then moved on to feel extreme frustration.
“As News Editor,” he said, “I’ve never been interested in the news, ever.”
“News sucks,” Spark said, “I hate news.”
However, it seems as though not all students are completely on the same page here.
Chris Kennedy, The Sage’s Equipment Manager, has a differing opinion entirely which is instead in support of this very controversial movement to add a minimum of one thousand words per article.
“I think it’s a really good idea,” Kennedy told The Sage.
“It really gets people to express their ideas in ways that they wouldn’t be able to if they were limited to about, like, three hundred words,” Kennedy explained in detail to The Sage.
In fact, Kennedy, the Equipment Manager, wants to take it a step further.
“I think, why a thousand?” he told The Sage News’ interviewer. “Bump it up to ten thousand, or one hundred thousand. Really get people to talk about themselves and their interests and their articles more.”
However, most feel swamped.
My keyboard, for example, when asked about this as I furiously typed this article for The Sage news, our school news organization at Sage Creek High School, shared its thoughts on the matter.
“Klickety klick clack clack klick click clack klick,” said my keyboard, when I interviewed it for The Sage, Sage Creek’s very own school news organization which I report for.
Various other typing onomatopoeia soon followed.
“Tippity tap click tap tap clack tip tap,” it said.
This word minimum which has been added simply feels unreasonable, according to most students. Adding a minimum word count for every article which is released by The Sage news organization, the school news of Sage Creek High School, which is our High School, and the news organization in which I write for, hence the reason for me using so much words, is, put very long-windedly, considered by a majority of student staff reporters as being something which is not only frustrating, but also immensely challenging to overcome.
Since writing that many words is oftentimes difficult for a majority of students, such as myself, as well as other students, hence the interviews which I conducted, it feels more limiting than anything else.
For example, if one was to write a news blurb about something such as the recent threats to Iran over the Strait of Hormuz blockade or recent very large and severe increase in the price of oil and gas for cars, then it would be an immense challenge to write such a blurb within the given constraints of a minimum of one thousand words, and also in a reasonable timeframe for the event itself.
Simply put, it encourages, in my opinion as someone who is the first to have to write an article with this word count, as a hindrance towards the things that i want to do in this program as a whole.
It follows a similar principle of the requirements of our society to have all of us conform to partake in one job for the rest of our lives, treating us as though we can simply fulfill whatever our boss or employer or shareholder desires.
However, I do still enjoy this class and as such will continue to write for it, as will, I imagine, most students and staff reporters, as well as any students in leadership positions, here at The Sage, our school news organization here at Sage Creek High School.
The given word minimum of one thousand words does still have some perks which I can not deny as a staff reporter. It encourages students, staff reporters and leadership position holders alike, to partake in writing more sophisticated and longer articles, preparing us for any essays which may have a similar word minimum requirement here at Sage Creek High School, which we go to, since we do things here at The Sage, which is the news organization of Sage Creek High School here in Carlsbad, California.
Also, if any person is wondering out there, no I have not used any large language models (LLMs) such as Gemini, ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, or any other models which I may not be aware of, to write this article. Although I do not agree with this new minimum, I refuse to sacrifice my journalistic integrity to meet a word count.
This has been Jake Householder signing off for The Sage news, the student news organization of Sage Creek High School, with an image made by Jack Spark, who is our resident News Editor, edited by Makena Coleman and Alya Alemdar, writing this article for The Sage.
