{"id":4232,"date":"2026-07-22T18:36:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=4232"},"modified":"2026-07-22T18:36:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T18:36:51","slug":"epstein-files-redwood-bark-school-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=4232","title":{"rendered":"A Teen Reporter Searched for His Community in the Epstein Files. Adults Freaked Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Increasingly convinced that they hadn\u2019t defamed anyone, the Bark staffers weighed their options. After school, Mueller, Schneider, Bishop, and another Bark editor sat down on the blue couches in their newsroom for a grueling four-hour debate. Painstakingly, they double-checked every single word on Mueller\u2019s slide, verifying it against the federal documents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">They were on the verge of deciding to leave the Instagram post alone. But after Schneider headed out for the evening, the students kept second-guessing themselves. They ended up deciding to temporarily archive Mueller\u2019s most controversial slide until they could meet with school officials in person. \u201cI think at the end of the day, the kids felt such pressure from the administration that they were almost looking for a reason to get out from under it,\u201d says Schneider, who had butted heads with school officials several times that year over the Bark. (Schneider is also someone I\u2019ve known for years; I\u2019m a massage therapist in Marin County, and Schneider used to be an occasional client before I started working as a journalist.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">That evening, the students wrote a note advising Schneider what they wanted to communicate to the principal; they framed their takedown of Mueller\u2019s slide as entirely their own prerogative. \u201cWe want to be clear that the removal was not in response to your request,\u201d they wrote. \u201cOur choice was based on our own ethical considerations and editorial standards.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The message was puzzling to Schneider, who saw the administrators\u2019 demand as a pretty clear example of censorship. But the Bark reporters didn\u2019t see themselves as having given in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\"><span class=\"lead-in-text-callout\">Finally, that Thursday,<\/span> Mueller and Bishop met in person with principal Barnaby Payne and Courtney Goode, superintendent of the Tamalpais Union High School District. Schneider came along too, but only to take notes. As she remembers it, the meeting started tense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Goode opened by explaining that the district couldn\u2019t possibly afford a legal battle. Mueller and Bishop stayed quiet, letting the administrators finish before asking them to clarify exactly what was libelous about the post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The administrators, it turned out, were primarily worried that Mueller had reported something that simply wasn\u2019t true. The district\u2019s own research, Goode explained, had found no evidence that Bonnouvrier was connected to providing models to Epstein. \u201cYou need to link your source to this,\u201d Goode said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Realizing the adults had likely just done a basic Google search, which couldn\u2019t access files deep in the federal Epstein database, Mueller pulled out his phone and opened to the specific document, showing his screen. \u201cThe source is just the Epstein files,\u201d Mueller said. \u201cIt is true, because it says it right here in a government document.\u201d On the screen was Bonnouvrier\u2019s email about her \u201cAustrian model,\u201d which seemed to take the two men aback.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">The high schoolers then launched into a breakdown of California Education Code 48907, reminding the administrators of state law. Unless content is obscene, incites violence or illegal activity, or is false or libelous, student journalists have total freedom of expression without administrative oversight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/epstein-files-redwood-bark-school-newspaper\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Increasingly convinced that they hadn\u2019t defamed anyone, the Bark staffers weighed their options. After school, Mueller, Schneider, Bishop, and another Bark editor sat down on the blue couches in their newsroom for a grueling four-hour debate. Painstakingly, they double-checked every single word on Mueller\u2019s slide, verifying it against the federal documents. They were on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[421,1024,434,1008,396,204],"class_list":["post-4232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-instagram","tag-jeffrey-epstein","tag-kids","tag-kids-these-days","tag-longreads","tag-social-media"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Teen Reporter Searched for His Community in the Epstein Files. Adults Freaked Out - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An Instagram post turned one California student newspaper into a free-speech flash point. 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