Editorial and Comment Policy

Editorial Policy

The Dragon Echo is the official student newspaper of Nacogdoches High School.  Our mission is to educate, inform, and highlight the stories that our student body values.

Our publications will not be reviewed or restrained by school officials before publication or distribution. The newspaper adviser may coach and discuss content during the writing process to promote sound journalistic practices; however, student editors will make all decisions about content. Because school officials do not engage in prior review, the content of The Dragon Echo is determined by and reflects only the views of the students on staff, not school officials or the school.  The views stated in the staff editorials represent the majority opinion of the editorial staff and are written by one or two staff members based on such. Signed columns or reviews labeled as “opinion” represent only the opinion of the author.

The Dragon Echo and its staff are protected by and bound to the principles of the First Amendment, the Speech Rights of Student Journalists Act, and other protections and limitations afforded by the Constitution and the various laws and court decisions implementing those principles.

The Dragon Echo will not publish any material determined by its staff to be unethically sourced, libelous, obscene, an unwarranted invasion of privacy, or a violation of copyright.

Stories, photographs, or videos will not be removed or deleted once published. Exceptions may be made if there is a compelling journalistic reason, such as a violation of standard journalistic ethics discovered after publication. Factual errors are not a cause for the deletion of a story; however, the staff will edit the publication to include an editor’s note along with a correction of the error.

Comment Policy

The Dragon Echo will not publish comments that contain rude or obscene language, hate speech, insults toward school staff or students, content that is irrelevant to the article or does not add to the discussion, or any attempts to imply that comments were written by someone other than the named author.

Comments that would fall outside of acceptable behavior according to the Nacogdoches High School Student Handbook and Code of Conduct will not be published.