Recent stories – all bylined – examined the migrant crisis, national educational politics, and Muslim students’ need for prayer space at Tech. It reported on pushback from some faculty to the school’s widespread purchase and use in advisory class of a motivational self-help book. It pointed out that some students had negative experiences in a widely known national study abroad program some Tech students participated in.

Through it all, Kiran said, “Principal Newman has been supportive – he’s been really great.”

Kiran and Josephine, who entered Tech in the “remote” Covid year of 2020-21, helped bring the newspaper back to full strength after the pandemic. As Law & Society majors “we care about what’s going on outside school” as well as inside, Kiran said.

“Our school has a big diversity of ideas,” she added. “Our job is trying to express them in as unbiased a way as we can. We are saying [to readers], ‘this is what happened.’ It’s up to you to decide.”

Inspired by summer experiences at The New York Times and NBC News, Kiran joined The Survey as a sophomore and rose from staff reporter to news editor and on up to the top editorship. When she joined, the newspaper’s website was blank – a testament to the pandemic’s impact. Her sophomore year, it published in print once.

Kiran started a boot camp to train new recruits in journalism and implemented a style guide. Last year, the paper returned to its regular print publication schedule, with a robust website (surveybths.com). It was named the city’s best online high school newspaper in a competition run by Baruch College.

“We don’t publish the most [frequently],” Kiran said. “But we spend months on each piece. We are putting out quality.”

“She has the curiosity and instinct to surround a good story, and get to its beating heart,” said faculty advisor Thomas Wentworth.

Kiran is now a freshman at Yale University. “Her potential is limitless and she is going to make a difference wherever she lands in life,” Mr. Wentworth said.