By Margarita Lazo and Lauren Hoover
In 1926, the first Tattler was published. Today, students still enjoy its issues, making it the longest running school newspaper in Montgomery County.
Digging through the B-CC files a few weeks ago, we found old, yellow, crinkled up Tattlers. The oldest of the Tattlers we found dated back to the first year of production, 1926. At first glance, these newspapers are very different from the Tattlers today, the students in the pictures have different clothes and follow different trends, and some of what they considered new, we consider old. Many trendy, new looks of their time are high waist pants, bow ties, and big hair.
The older Tattlers also had different columns, topics of interest and writing styles. Probably influenced by some rules imposed on the Tattler. In one edition, we found an actual gossip column, listing first and last names of students, satisfying students’ curiosity with lines like “Kenny Birchby is wearing a sad and haunted look of late…losing sleep over a certain dark-haired girl”, something the Tattler would not be allowed to pull off today. In one 1939 edition, they also gave out tips for school picture days.
The older Tattlers also included cartoons. One cartoon had a picture of a student selling Tattler newspapers. That’s right, selling. Each paper was sold for a few cents.
Times were certainly different back then.
Now, the Tattler has not only changed their articles and columns, but it has decided to go online. Having the Tattler go online will make news reading more interactive and exciting for students. Anyone is able to comment on any article and a live feed will also be featured for authors.
We decided to make an online version of the Tattler to catch up modern day technology. Practically all teens today are “tech junkies” and are obsessively communicating with each other through social networking cites such as Facebook, MySpace and twitter.
The online edition will help the Tattler keep up with current events. The downside to the print is that the articles are dated, given the nature of it. With the online edition, it can be updated quickly and news stories can be put up the second something happens.
The Tattler Online has columnists, cartoonists, and additional writers who are part of the Tattler Extra club and some contributors from the Tattler class.
The Tattler Online will be an extension of the Tattler Newspaper and the two mediums will often feature some of the same topics. Some of the newspaper articles will even be extended on the website.
The Tattler Online club meets every Thursday at lunch and anyone is welcome to write an article or contribute to the online forum (http://tattlerextra.org/forum/), open to students, teachers and parents to discuss topics from Policies, like upperclassmen being allowed to drive, to Community Issues, like the purple line.
