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Dear Reader,

In the early days of my career, I was lucky enough to cover City Hall for the New York Daily News, where my stories — no matter the size — were scrutinized to make sure every detail was correct. This was less true in the sports department, where tight deadlines meant copy got edited super-fast — but the training served me well. 

As one of the first female sportswriters in the country, I had a different type of scrutiny: Both readers and competitors expected a woman to get things wrong. So I felt honor-bound to avoid that. Some of my male colleagues could spout statistics and historical sports anecdotes off the top of their heads, but sometimes they were wrong. I always looked things up and double-checked with experts. 

**This is exactly what you can expect from The Hechinger Report.**

I’m so happy to be working here, in a newsroom where my colleagues always check facts, where they know how to analyze data, where they interview experts from diverse viewpoints before making conclusions and where — like me in my sportswriting days — they are careful not to assume they know things, but to do the reporting to see. 

I know it’s easy to quickly move on to the next email.

**But if this type of reporting matters to you, I hope you will take a moment to support it.** Whether it’s $15 [link removed], $150 [link removed] or $500 [link removed], every gift helps give our reporters the time to fact-check, analyze and never assume.

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The other very special quality about Hechinger is that our reporters truly love to get out in the world and talk to teachers, parents, administrators, daycare workers, professors, advocates, scientists … and, of course, students. We love what we do, and thank you for reading our work.

Thank you,

Lawrie Mifflin

Higher education editor, The Hechinger Report

**P.S. Thank you for your patience this week. We only run a few campaigns a year, and they are critical to keeping our education coverage free to read and our reporters in your classrooms and on your campuses. If you'd like to skip these messages,**donate any amount now, [link removed]

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