The Sioux City Journal isn't tip-toeing around an ongoing national crisis.
Prompted by a local tragedy, the paper ran a full-page Sunday commentary on bullying and its devastating consequences, with the headline, "We Must Stop Bullying. It Starts Here. It Starts Now."
The editorial followed the April 15 suicide of 14-year-old Kenneth Weishuhn, Jr., a student at South O'Brien High School who according to relatives was the target of severe and pervasive bullying at the hands of fellow students.
"This is not a failure of one group of kids, one school, one town, one county or one geographic area," the Journal's editorial board wrote in a forceful and poignant op-ed. "Rather, it exposes a fundamental flaw in our society, one that has deep-seated roots. Until now, it has been too difficult, inconvenient -- maybe even painful -- to address. But we can't keep looking away."
Read the full op-ed here.