Arthur Miller once said, “a good newspaper should be a nation talking to itself.” Our goal as a staff is to help Urban talk to itself, to be what our mission statement calls a “vehicle of student freedom of expression and a public forum for The Urban School community.”

But we feel that the relationship between the Legend and the student body needs to be reinvigorated.

The staff recently discovered an archive of old issues of The Urban Legend. While reading the work of our predecessors, we were amused to come across articles written in Cyrillic, reviews of the latest impromptu musical performances by Urban students, and a Valentine’s Day spread of anonymous love notes.

Through these papers, we observed a spirit that has defined our school in years past: In these issues, the oomph of Urban was unabashedly expressed, and the pages tended towards the surprising and controversial.

Our school has changed a lot over the years, but we believe that this original spirit remains vibrant.

The newspaper is a tool for our student body to discover who we are as a school community today, and to chronicle the spirit of this unique group of students. The staff wants to ensure that when future Urban students see our work in the paper’s archives, they too will the same clear snapshot of our collective identity.

We see the Legend as living history, a way to capture the lives and opinions of current Urban students, and we do our best to shape the paper’s content and its policies around Urban’s collective personality.

This month, for example, we created a policy as a staff addressing the issue of profanity in the paper. Profanity is ubiquitous, from Muni patrons to vice presidents on Capitol Hill. It also appears in two of our stories, including a quote from a homeless person in “The End of the McDonald’s Menu” (page 1) and a song title on page 12.

As a staff, we realized swearing is part of the way Urban talks, and modifying words could corrupt what we think is Urban’s voice. So we decided to print the word we needed to use — “bullshit” — and without the ellipsis that might make it more palatable. Because, really, are any of you fooled by the dots?

We agree with Jake Drummond (’12), who told us “if a newspaper is supposed to be the voice of a community — then it should speak in the voice of the community,” and in our paper we try to print what you talk about and what you would want to hear about.

At the moment, each issue of the Legend is testimony to the richness of Urban as reported by our dedicated class of student journalists. But the newspaper’s voice cannot be limited to the members of the Legend staff—that isn’t enough.

Our articles cover your events and use your opinions in quotes. But a good newspaper must be more than a collection of articles, more than the sum of its parts; it has to be made meaningful by your readership, and by your responses to our work, both critical and enthusiastic.

So we need you at the beginning of the process too: We want you to write for the Legend.

When we explained to Quinn McKnight (’11) that The Urban Legend has always been open to submissions, she exclaimed, “I didn’t know you could do that!”

To set the record straight: You can.

We urge you to come on into the Moon Room during an E Period on a Wednesday or Thursday and become a part of the process. Send us letters, articles, photos, questions, comments, and ideas at [email protected]. Weigh in on all past and current articles at urbanlegendnews.org. And of course, you can always talk to any Legend staff member about what you want to see in our pages.

This paper is yours.