A local newspaper you should be reading: The Wilson Beacon

The journalists at Wilson High School’s student newspaper are no slouches.

Just two weeks after the 2019-2020 school year began, The Beacon’s reporters and editors were off and running, publishing stories on record projected enrollment in the freshman class, a $23 million DCPS budget deficit, and at Wilson, a $170,000 shortfall after the school lost access to money raised by renting out school facilities.

In October, The Beacon’s student journalists followed up on that funding loss. They covered student drunkenness at the homecoming dance, the new DCPS policy allowing students to use medical marijuana, and demographic changes in the student body: Wilson is getting whiter.

November’s news coverage includes the staff’s frustrations with frequently broken copiers, a protest over casting of the Wilson musical, the mystery of a missing Susan B. Anthony portrait, and policies concerning outside food on campus. Wilson is now enforcing a longtime policy barring food from Tenleytown eateries. And a new DCPS policy bars the sale of “unhealthy” food, so no more bake sales or Krispy Kreme fundraisers.

The Beacon also has robust Opinions and Spanish-language sections that take on school, local, national and international issues of the day.

And yes, many articles are online at thewilsonbeacon.com. But a lot of their best work is reserved for the monthly print edition and a magazine that publishes four times a year, so we have long encouraged our own readers to subscribe. Your subscription has the added benefit of covering the costs of producing The Beacon. The newspaper doesn’t get any funding from Wilson or DCPS. The Wilson High PTSO covers about 40 percent of its expenses. The rest, The Beacon raises through advertising, subscriptions and donations.