About Us

The Urban Legend is a vehicle of student freedom of expression and a public forum for the Urban School of San Francisco community. We currently produce five newspapers per year, numerous online-only articles and our annual magazine (The Yeti). Articles are brainstormed, written and edited by members of the Journalism class.

Urban students can apply to be a part of the Urban Legend starting at the end of freshman year. We admit applicants according to a variety of factors, including the constraints of our staff size.

If you wish to become a member of the Urban Legend outside of the normal application period, email a current member of the leadership (listed in the staff profiles section) for more information.

Being a part of the Urban Legend is a serious commitment. We meet during all three E periods without exception and once in a while meet during lunch to polish off the newspaper before sending to print. New members of staff, nicknamed “cubs,” begin by learning AP style before writing articles for the rest of the year. Over time, they become dominant in other areas of the publication besides just writing, such as design, visuals, editing, publicizing, managing and more. In their second or third year, members of staff acquire larger roles, such as page editors or leadership.

We at the Urban Legend find ourselves at the vanguard of exploring the changing face of journalism, hence our steadily expanding online presence. Due to this exploration, the organization of our leadership have been changing for the past few years and continues to evolve today. At the moment, we have two Editors in Chief who run the print publication and lead the staff, as well as a Web Editor who works alongside the Editors in Chief but also runs the website and online content. We also have managing editors who assist the main leadership in running the staff.

For those who want to contribute to the Urban Legend but cannot commit to becoming a member of staff, we regularly publish guest-written articles but reserve the right to edit them.

Our unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of the Urban Legend staff.