Staff

Bakr Al Qaraghuli is the founder and editor of The Princeton Journal. He is an undergraduate student at Texas Tech University majoring in political science, with plans to attend law school and pursue a career in public service spanning government, law, and politics.

He launched The Princeton Journal in spring 2025 after seeing residents across social media confused, alarmed, and often misinformed about what was happening in Princeton, especially surrounding emergency services and city government. What began with a single Facebook post quickly became something larger. He saw that people needed more than fragments, rumors, and political spin. They needed someone willing to do the hard work of reading, researching, explaining, and making public information understandable. That realization became the foundation of The Princeton Journal.

His goal is to build an independent, nonpartisan publication that gives residents a clear, reliable understanding of what is happening in their city and beyond. The mission is simple: inform people, protect them through knowledge, and refuse narrative pushing, political games, and bias.

In spring 2025, Bakr deepened his public service by applying to the City of Princeton’s Ad Hoc Bylaw Committee, where he was appointed by the City Council. That role expanded both his responsibility and his determination to serve the people of Princeton well. It pushed him to study city structure, governance, and procedure at a far deeper level so he could contribute meaningfully and responsibly.

In May 2025, during his final semester at Texas Tech that year, Bakr was baptized and converted to Christianity. He now walks the path he believes he was always meant to walk, grounded in faith in Jesus Christ and committed to living with greater purpose, discipline, and service.

In summer 2025, he served in Washington, D.C. as a policy intern, working in an environment shaped by the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court. That experience further strengthened his commitment to public service and sharpened his understanding of how institutions shape the lives of ordinary people.

In fall 2025, Bakr was appointed by the Princeton City Council to the Planning and Zoning Commission, where he now serves as a commissioner. It was another role that challenged him in unexpected ways and placed him inside a field he had never originally imagined entering. Even so, he approaches it with the same principle that drives all of his work: to serve the best interests of the city faithfully, seriously, and without ego.

Bakr was born in Iraq and came to the United States legally as a child. He has lived in Texas ever since. Having been born into war and shaped by the failures of government and law at their most devastating level, he chose to enter the very fields that once failed him. His aim is not merely personal success. It is to help build a world in which institutions protect people the way they should, and in which ordinary residents are not left powerless, voiceless, or uninformed.

At the center of everything he does is a simple commitment: to serve the people.