My first time writing for The Tattler was an opinion piece, something political. I didn’t really see myself as much of a writer, but I knew that I wanted to write something. So, I chose something that seemed interesting, and something that I knew about at the time. A practical decision, if not the most passionate one.
But one article turned into another, into another, into another, and soon enough into a genuine passion for journalism and now, after four years, I find myself as the departing Editor-in-Chief of The Tattler—the last thing middle-school me would have seen coming.
I could go on for pages and pages about how special The Tattler is, and how, beyond changing my perspective, it changed me as a person. But in this piece, the last piece I will ever write for this paper, I’ve realized that I want to share something more universal.
I’ve often thought about the “power of student journalism.” In quotes, because it seems to come to me that way—something repeated many times, without a clear answer as to what it actually means. However, over the years, I’ve come to question what that represents. Does the power of student journalism mean the power to change real things, in the real world? A visionary, or perhaps an optimist, would answer yes. But looking back on all the editorials I’ve ever written, the ones that have come out of the paper, few have ever accomplished real change. Yes, they’ve been talked about, and yes, some have gripped the school, but besides those few special cases that caused the big wheels that matter to spin a little bit, for the most part, we haven’t caused very much concrete change—a difficult truth, but an unavoidable one all the same.
I recognize that that paragraph was fairly pessimistic. But I don’t want anyone to emerge from this with their hands thrown up—”What’s the point of it all then?” Instead, I think that there’s another version of the story here, one that’s a little more complex and nuanced.
The function of student journalism, as I see it, is not always to “change things.” Yes, that is a goal, and it is truly admirable when we accomplish it, but the broader function of our paper, of any paper, is to publish issues sharing information with the world. We are a small paper, with relatively little reach, but our mission is the same as that of the New York Times (with the slogan to match).
So what is the power of student journalism? It’s the sharing of information, thoughts, and opinions with the world that are powered by student voice. Does this always accomplish concrete change? Of course not. But what matters most is that we try. That we put ourselves out there, writing about what we think is important, so that people understand students and our voices—what we see as the future.
The truth is, as many articles I’ve written for The Tattler, the little things here and there I’ve changed as Editor-in-Chief, this paper will remain, as it has always been, something far larger than me or any one of us. The Tattler has changed a lot over the past century and a half, and it hasn’t even always had the same name. To that extent, more than any specific issue, The Tattler is more of a concept—a daring experiment in sharing the voice of students, of the future, with the rest of the world.