Dear Urban,
In a year unlike any other, our staff has continued to put an immense amount of time and effort into producing issues of The Urban Legend for our community. We are excited to present to you our annual magazine, The Yeti, which our staff has spent hours writing, editing and designing. Whether it was staying late to meet with their editors over Zoom or taking time out of their Sunday afternoon to tweak details on their InDesign files, we are proud to report that The Urban Legend staff stayed diligent and motivated in the midst of such trying times.
Last spring, the Journalism leadership team made the decision to keep The Urban Legend up and running in virtual school, a choice that set the precedent for a school year full of investigative reporting, difficult virtual interviews, and long Zoom meetings. As this year’s Editors in Chief of Print, we have prioritized making issues of The Urban Legend to mail to everyone’s homes, in an attempt to maintain some sense of normalcy – no matter how small – for our valued peers, families, faculty and staff. We have remained committed to bringing pertinent topics to the Urban community, from environmental and racial justice to profiling local businesses. Our staff found joy in the simple things – like what the 9th graders are doing for virtual PA’s and people’s Zoom-school outfits – as well as the complex – like whether students were following social distancing orders and the experiences of essential worker families.
In a moment in which the country feels fraught with division, journalism pushes us to reject the comfort of a single-sided narrative. Instead, we endeavor as journalists to understand that truth is rarely black and white but resides uncomfortably in life’s grey areas. In this politically divided time, we must remind ourselves that no one person has a single story, just like no one article should present a single perspective. This is the challenge and the value of journalism: translating the experiences of others into a larger story that engenders empathy and helps us bridge the silos of our singular experiences. Rather than further entrenching ourselves in our own way of thinking, our staff strives to write articles that expand perspectives and reveal more nuanced truths about ourselves, our values and the world. However, journalism is a beginning, not an end. The existential threats of climate change and racial and economic injustice demand that we continue the journalistic project of translating individual experiences into a common narrative to find common cause with others.
As we publish our last magazine with The Urban Legend, we wish to express our incredible gratitude for the fulfilling experiences and community we’ve garnered through our experience in the newsroom these last three years. We want to thank Lingerr Senghor and Sarah Levin for their commitment to both the paper and the staff– advocating for us as students with powerful opinions and questions. We also extend gratitude to our fellow leadership members, who have worked with us all year, and some of whom will continue to carry on the legacy of serving the Urban community in the years to come. Until graduation, we will continue to write, design, and provide you with meaningful stories in an ever-changing climate.
We hope you enjoy the 11th edition of the Urban Legend magazine,

Ellie Lerner and Clementine Daniel
Editors in Chief of Print