“Journalism is dead.” Although I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement, it was true at Los Alamitos High School before the Griffin Gazette. Most students didn’t understand journalism or the role it plays on campus. When I became editor-in-chief in August 2023, the Griffin Gazette was celebrating its first birthday, and the party’s turnout was modest: our fledgling newspaper staff of twenty-three. Eight dropouts later, our class was under twenty students and in danger of shutting down. Despite this, I built a culture of journalism on a campus where it did not exist, in a community where it is undervalued. Overcoming these challenges, I lifted the Griffin Gazette from a group of cub reporters to a newsroom of award-winning student journalists. Accepting my school’s disinterest in journalism as outside my control, I fostered the growth of our eager learners, guiding them and building them up. I co-anchored our broadcast news channel; took the lead over our Instagram account; and edited articles during lunch, after school, and on weekends. I contacted LAHS alumni and other working journalists to visit our class as guest speakers, and I emailed the principal weekly to get our articles in the school newsletter. When adults on campus sought to restrict our voices, I held my ground and advocated for journalism by reaching out to teachers with informational fliers and individual meetings. With graduation approaching, I’m developing a digital folder of class resources and training my managing editor to take over as editor-in-chief, continuing the Griffin Gazette’s legacy. As a result of these initiatives, the Griffin Gazette is recognized by School Newspapers Online and Headliners in Education as one of the nation’s top high school news sites, with a staff of nearly thirty. More importantly, Los Alamitos recognizes us as a reputable news source. LAHS students, teachers, and clubs seek us out with news tips and requests to cover their events. Our scrappy team started as a small newspaper on a campus generally indifferent to our existence; now in our third year, we made a name for ourselves that will establish the Griffin Gazette as a respected LAHS publication for years to come. By making space for the Griffin Gazette on a campus that lacked a newspaper to inform students and hold adults accountable, I am part of a story that begins now and continues into a future of journalism for thousands more LAHS students.