School Paper of Lost Causes?

Mom somehow got her hands on a copy of the lastest issue of the Judenites, my old school paper, published quarterly (that how few newsworthy events happened at the school). Their production values improved considerably from when I was Features editor. Aside from now being in published in color, they've switched to a tabloid/newsmag format, with this issue clocking in at 44 pages.
FYI, that's an actual picture of the sun on the cover, not the result of flash photography.

Still, all these superficial "improvements" can't hide the wreck of the editorial content and feature articles, particularly from the high school writers.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. Lord knows I cringe everytime I happen to reread some of the tripe I wrote. Perhaps I feel like they're trampling on what little mark we left almost 15 years ago. What I am certain of (now more than ever) is this: newspapers need proofreaders.
Unfortunately (according to the masthead) the Judenites seem to have done away w/ them, presumably relying instead on its editors and the writer's use of their word proscessor's spellcheck function.

Can't really judge the news articles. Like I said, not much happens in the school. I've always felt that we pratically talk about the same thing every quarter (Passion Play, JS Prom, Sportsfest, Teacher's Day, etc.). I wish back then we could've just saved the article templates, keeping the "What" and "Where," while leaving blank the "Who," "When," "Why" and "How." That would've saved a lot of time during layouting.

In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that my cousin's son is now Features editor. While his article was well written (albeit a bit flowery for my taste), the same couldn't be said for some of his colleagues. Some highlights:

"If you're going to be asked, 'Is money more important to you than anything?', what will you say? Will you agree? Or will you say an emphatic "NO?" If no, what's more important to you, then: Family? Education? Dignity?"

At the end of the day, even if you have the best food on the table, crystal plates and saucers, gold spoon and knife, you would not have the appetite to eat."

"Adrianne Tan discovers some chocolatey facts about chocolate!"

"Damage to hearing is caused by the high volume, where it doesn't only affect our sense of hearing but also the fragile hair cells in the inner ear that transmit sound impulses to the brain."

If you told me high-schoolers wrote this I would've taken that aforementioned gold spoon and knife to scoop my eyeballs out, then stabbed you out of spite.

Ironically this paper's saving grace lay w/ its grade school writers, whose basic command of the English language (and grammar) gave me hope, assuming they have plans to run the paper when they reach high school.

In the meantime: someone bring back Mrs. Collada!