133 years ago, a group of students at the Cambridge Latin School (Rindge’s predecessor) sent the first edition of “The C.M.T.S. Register” to the Harvard Crimson’s printing press. It was the Cambridge Latin School’s first printed publication in its 200-year-old existence. It was the start of one of the longest running high school papers in the country, and there is a reason it has lasted.
Since its inception, the Register Forum has provided students the opportunity to explore journalism while also giving students a reliable stream of information about school events. It serves as a check on teachers and administrators who step out of line and advertise other organizations or events around the school.
Despite a couple of name changes and over a century to evolve, the issues that the paper faced then are the issues it still faces now. In a city that was quickly diversifying, the C.M.T.S. Register (the RF’s name 133 years ago) was almost entirely white. More than a century later, Cambridge has turned into a national beacon of diversity. The Register Forum has not. Among a student body that encompasses students from various backgrounds and perspectives, our contributor and editor demographics don’t reflect this diversity. This not only raises serious equity concerns, but it threatens journalistic integrity as a homogenous institution cannot capture the many perspectives of a diverse student body. It further is a negative reflection of the paper itself for it has failed to make itself approachable to the entire student body.
Over the past few years, the Register Forum has launched several initiatives to make the paper truly representative of the school it serves. As editors-in-chief, we will continue the middle school initiative that introduces the Register Forum to eighth-grade English classrooms. This way, all CPSD students can enter high school familiar with the paper. This mitigates the issues with our traditional advertisements on Instagram and email: they always reach the same audience.
Further, we hope to collaborate with other clubs and organizations to reach new demographics. Monthly, the Math Club gives us a problem to publish on their behalf. We hope to achieve relationships like this with other clubs in the upcoming months whether it be content like the Math Club’s or advertisements. This edition, for example, features an advertisement from the Rubik’s Cube Club.
Like last year, we hope we can continue to update our many sections to fulfill the changing wishes of our writers and readers. Today, contributors are not constrained to writing only news articles, as we have sections that cover sports, humor, food, music, movies, books, and even a podcast.
This year, we plan to develop our Around School section further. With the coming Cambridge elections, we hope to cover the School Committee candidates with scrutiny in order to inform the student body on each candidate’s policy proposals. As one can pre-register to vote in Cambridge elections at 16, be sure to register at least 10 days before the election. The school committee is responsible for the majority of school policies, like the new attendance violation rule, so get out and vote!
The Metro section has traditionally been a place where students reading the Register Forum can engage with news around the world. However, over the past few years, our Metro writers have been putting additional emphasis on covering local news in Cambridge rather than just focusing on national and international coverage. In order to recognize this growing shift, we have decided to create a new Nation section. Contributors interested in writing articles about local events will still do so under the old Metro section. However, any article reporting news outside of Cambridge will now be under the Nation section.
If this is your first time reading the Register Forum, we cordially invite you to take a chance and join us for one of our many monthly NewsStorms. There, we chat about current events and brainstorm article ideas for the upcoming month. If you feel uncertain about writing your first article, don’t worry as our staff of experienced editors will kindly help you through the process. We will also begin to hold workshops after school to help anyone with their articles. Writing also isn’t the only way you can contribute. Our illustrators, photographers, and copy editors are as important as our writers, so if you’re interested in learning or honing the skills involved with those roles, come by anytime!
We cannot express how excited we are for another year of reporting!
This article also appears in our September 2023 print edition.
