A past in print: The history of the print Falconer

A year after TPHS opened its doors, the Falconer began. Dozens of staffs have overseen the paper, hundreds of thousands of copies have covered campus and billions of words have been printed. While its current format has been reinvented time and again like words on a page, the ink has now dried up in exchange for pixels on a screen. We now read from paper pages for the last time before stepping into a new age of digitized journalism. Despite this major change, it is irrefutable that, in its 50-year history, the Falconer has touched each and every life etched into its masthead.

As Alexa Lomberg (‘12), former Falconer editor-in-chief, said, the process of creating a physical, printed publication cultivates critical skills like layout design and refines one’s writing.

“The electricity of when [the paper] comes out in the morning and you have these thousands of newspapers … [is] just something that can’t be replaced,” Lomberg said.

According to Lomberg, the Falconer’s physical format had a profound impact, allowing staff members to create a product that felt “final and tangible.” Even as digital platforms emerged, the shift away from paper faced “pushback from students [on campus]” who recognized the inherent worth of a printed newspaper. 

This sentiment is echoed by Lauren Shauh (‘12), a former Falconer Focus special section editor, who said that print media maintains a “unique power to be a really credible source of truth,” particularly in an era of “information wars and the rise of [artificial intelligence].”

Of course, the Falconer would not be able to establish its presence on campus without printing thousands of copies a year that are distributed in classrooms and the community.

Since 2022, the Falconer has been printed by Gardena Valley Web Offset, a company that “prints over 300 college and high school newspapers.”

Gardena Valley Web Offset is dubbed “the largest scholastic printer in California, printing newspapers for schools from Santa Barbara to Chula Vista,” according to Gardena Valley Web Offset’s Customer Service Coordinator, Kelly Barth.

Regarding the relevancy and value of print journalism, Barth said that “there is something about having a work printed in your hands. It is a great documentation of something and you can keep it for a long time.” 

Lomberg echoed this sentiment, stating that the print medium is immensely valuable, particularly in a generation grappling with “screen fatigue.” 

Shauh — who now works in digital marketing at Google — elaborated on the power of print, expressing that it “feels like a familiar friend” and a “credible source of truth.” 

Further, print journalism has the reader’s “full undivided attention, as [they are] holding it in their hands instead of tab switching and scrolling endlessly,” offering a “refreshing and credible alternative” that commands undivided attention, according to Lomberg. 

The Falconer has long been a testament to the power and lasting impact of print journalism. However, with the advent of social media, the news has shifted from paper-based to more digital-based mediums. 

According to the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan “fact tank,” 30% of U.S. adults regularly turn to Facebook for news in 2024. In response to this trend, newspapers are beginning to shift toward incorporating online presences to reach broader audiences and increase readership.

According to Kara Adler, the adviser of Falcon Vision and successor to the retiring adviser of the Falconer, “it’s important to understand digital patterns and social media engagement to ensure their stories are not only told but read as well.”

When the Falconer’s website emerged, Lomberg recounted the conversations and worries that many students shared about “ditching the papers and going fully-digital.”

This concern is echoed by former Falconer Assistant Editor-in-Chief, Jerry Wu (‘23), who is studying at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. 

At Northwestern, Wu is the Diversity and Inclusion Chair of the school’s student-run newspaper, The Daily Northwestern. According to Wu, The Daily prints two paper issues per week for a total of 18 printed issues every quarter.

“We are having some newsroom discussions about changing the printed version [of our paper] to being printed once a week, but that’s still up in the air,” Wu said.

According to Wu, fewer people seem to be interested in the print medium. 

“I love the essence of what news distribution used to be, but we have to be realistic in the sense that more and more folks try to get their news from more digital mediums,” Wu said.

However, Wu still believes that print journalism is significant.

“There’s still a lot of value when it comes to print journalism. I feel like the main debate when it comes to print is that its target audience might not be as big as before,” Wu said. “But what makes a newspaper a newspaper is the feeling of being able to hold the paper in your fingers and being able to peruse the pages.”

Despite the benefits of print, the medium of the Falconer will evolve in the 2024-25 school year, promoting more online news consumption. 

“I think the benefits of digital [news], such as more timely, relevant and broader coverage, outweigh the disadvantage of not having a physical version,” Adler said.

Though the future development of the Falconer is not set in stone, it is irrefutable that the digital world is evolving, and the paper’s evolution should follow suit.

“I think regardless of what career students choose to go in after taking journalism, it is important to learn how to use and interpret digital media stories responsibly,” Adler said.