About

The Crimson Crier is a state and national award-winning scholastic newspaper. Our goal is to communicate professional journalism to the Sparkman High School student body and community. The paper is a consistent All-Alabama, All-Southern and CSPA Gold Medal publication. The Crimson Crier is currently in transition to publish a newsmagazine 6 times a year.

The Crimson Crier’s mission statement is: 

Journalists will honor the school community and the journalistic profession by placing, truth, accuracy, and objectivity first. We will use these three characteristics to best serve our student body and our community. We will strive for work of the highest quality.

We view the First Amendment’s guarantee of a free press as an inalienable right of people in a free society and know that with this freedom, we have the responsibility to discuss, question, and challenge actions.

Mission, Law and Journalistic Principles

The Crimson Crier is a forum for student journalists to inform and educate their readers as well as for the discussion of issues of concern to their primary audience—other students. Our publication undergoes prior review by our principal, therefore, the burden of liability may fall on the school and not the student publication or adviser.

Students are aware of their legal obligation to avoid obscenity, libel, slander or content that “so incites pupils as to create a clear and present danger of the commission of unlawful acts on school premises or the violation of lawful school regulations, or the substantial disruption of the orderly operation of the school.”

The overall purpose, role and goal of The Crimson Crier is to:

1. Inform, challenge and entertain readers and viewers with accurate reports and thoughtful perspectives, where information has been impartially gathered and thoroughly verified;
2. Serve as an educational laboratory experience for those on staff;
3. Be accurate, fair, and impartial in its coverage of issues that affect the school community;
4. Cover relevant topics, even in cases of possible controversy;
5. Cover the total school population as effectively and accurately as possible;
6. Report all issues in a legal, objective, accurate and ethical manner, in accordance with the code of ethics developed by the Society for Professional Journalists which includes guidelines for accuracy, responsibility, integrity, conflict of interest, impartiality, fair play, freedom of the press, independence, sensationalism, personal privacy, obstruction of justice, credibility and  advertising.

Letters to the Editor:

The Crimson Crier invites Letters to the Editor. All Letters to the Editor must be signed and include contact information of the writer. Letters can be dropped off to Room 149. Letters may be edited for grammatical mistakes.