Print is back at FAU's University Press. It wasn't easy
What student editors learned from bringing print back, from planning logistics to embracing critique
When The University Press told The Nutgraf last fall that it was bringing back its print edition after more than a year on pause, its editor called the move a “big challenge.”
Now, with their fourth print issue about to drop, Florida Atlantic University’s student journalists are realizing just how big that challenge really was — and how much they’ve grown from it.
“I feel thrilled,” said Sofia De La Espriella, editor-in-chief. “I can definitely look back and say, ‘Yeah, we progressed, we learned.’”
The Nutgraf caught up with De La Espriella and Managing Editor Michael Cook to hear how the year unfolded and what they learned from wrangling layouts, chasing critiques and trying to get college students to actually pick up the paper.
The effort to bring print back comes as student newspapers nationwide grapple with shrinking budgets, often cutting or scaling back their print products. A recent study also found that only 8% of students read their campus newspaper in print.
“I think the conversation that print is dying is very evidently true,” Cook said. “For college students, especially multimedia journalism students, we have to adapt to that.”
And while neither editor thinks print is making a full comeback, De La Espriella said learning how to put together a newspaper is something every journalism student should experience.
It’s a lesson in far more than just sending off PDFs to a printer, she said.
These responses from De La Espriella and Cook have been paraphrased and edited for clarity, concision and flow.
What led to the decision to bring print back?
De La Espriella: When I became editor-in-chief, my original plan was not to print because of the same reasons (funding). But once I did some research, I realized there were other ways to fund print editions, and that some people did want to see a physical copy.
I spent a lot of time talking to student government leaders about the possibility of getting more funding for print, and they gave us the money. From there, it was all about figuring out how to make it work.
It was a complete learning process. If you look at our first print issue now, we’d all say, “Yeah, this wasn’t it.” We were figuring out which printing company to use. We didn’t have a designer. We were asking ourselves: What kind of content should we include? Should we have themes or not? How can we work with the designers?
Things have shifted a lot. But that’s because we’ve learned more about the business and realized it doesn’t have to be black and white. There’s room for gray.
Yes, we’re not printing 2,000 copies, because they wouldn’t all get picked up. But we can still print 600. There’s still an audience for that. And that doesn’t take away from our ability to continue building in the digital space.
Could you elaborate on what you learned during that research process?
De La Espriella: First of all, I knew 2,000 copies were way too many at a commuter university that has around 25,000 students. That was the first thing.
The second thing was realizing we do have the stands, but do people know where the stands are? People graduate every three to four years. New students might not even know, “Oh yeah, you're allowed to open and take one copy without paying.”
There was still a lot of advertising that needed to be done, especially on social media, to show people, “Hey, this is where you can find them.”
Then with the topics and how many stories, I thought, “OK, how many pages can people read in one sitting, without getting bored, but still enough to include ads, give us room for design and stay within budget?” That ended up being between 16 and 20 pages.
The first print edition didn’t come out as well as we wanted. My advisor suggested a print company in Florida, and I didn’t like what they did. But I also didn’t know enough. I hadn’t done enough research on the differences between companies and what they offer.
So I sat down and started investigating. What print companies do big universities use? What kind of paper do they offer? What’s the difference between glossy and matte? Between different sizes?
The second big lesson was that we didn’t have a designer, which was a huge problem for producing the first issue.
It was about bringing in a designer and people who were not only interested in writing a story, but in creating a whole piece and understanding what it takes to make something that communicates. Do the colors matter? Does the texture of the paper matter? All those things come up in the process.
There’s still a lot to learn, but we’ve gotten to the point where we can balance paying for it and seeing that people actually pick it up, especially because we make them themed. I always wanted them to be themed because we only do two or three per semester, so I wanted it to feel special.
Cook: I think the conversation that print is dying is very evidently true. For college students, especially multimedia journalism students, we have to adapt to that.
Something we’ve pushed is making an effort on social media. But I also think, in a strange way, if a publication is going to do print, they should use social media to their advantage to promote it.
If a publication is on the fence about whether to do a print issue or not, I think it comes down to this idea of: “I have a website, I could just produce all my content there.”
But if a publication doesn’t have the funds or the manpower to maintain both, create a special topic. Whatever your theme is, whatever message you want to get out to your audience, you can distill it into that print issue.
Since we only do two per semester, we want each one to feel intentional. Last semester, we did one on the election. Interestingly enough, that issue didn’t get picked up as much as the Women’s History Month issue. So you also have to know who your audience is.
In this case, it’s college students, and you have to think about what they would actually want to read. Especially in print. Attention spans nowadays are short, so if you're going to do a print issue, it has to be something engaging and special that stands out.
We’re doing an environmental issue to close out this semester. You want to create content that’s engaging for your audience, but also if you're struggling with manpower or have a small staff, find a topic that your editorial team is excited about.
Each time you do print, no matter how many times you’ve done it, there’s always going to be a mistake or something to learn from. Finding an angle that’s fun for your writers to report on is essential.
How do you measure engagement with print?
Cook: I don’t have the exact number, but we may have around 10 newsstands on campus. One way to track how they’re doing is by keeping count of how many issues you put in each bin, noting the date and then going back later to see how many were picked up.
For example, with that election issue, I went back and saw that a lot of them hadn’t been touched. Some of them had probably gotten a tan from the sun — they were all dull and gray. That’s not a fun thing to look at for the person putting out the issue.
But I think it’s something important to pay attention to. It tells you, “Hey, this isn’t interesting enough for college students in particular. We need to do something more engaging.”
De La Espriella: When you were asking about how we figure out what kind of shift we have to make to get people’s attention, it’s difficult. It’s the same thing as with social media. How does an influencer become an influencer? Maybe because they’re eating. But I could start doing videos of myself eating and I wouldn’t go viral.
You kind of have to try. It’s trial and error, trial and error.
Since we only do two or three issues per semester, we ask: What are the big dates or big events happening that semester? The election — obviously, we had to talk about it. Maybe a lot of our college students weren’t interested or were tired of hearing about the election. But we knew someone would care. And we framed it through FAU’s lens.
Another example of that trial-and-error approach was our first issue. It was basically about things people might not know about FAU. We did it intentionally to teach the new generation of students, especially the freshmen, things they obviously didn’t know about FAU.
But that issue wasn’t picked up much. That’s a topic you might think is super interesting, if you’re new to the university, you’d want to know about it. But it didn’t land.
Why? Not necessarily because people didn’t care. It might’ve been because we didn’t market it well enough. Maybe we didn’t reach them in time. Maybe the physical product wasn’t attractive enough.
It’s a whole system of factors. It’s not just one variable you can point to when you’re trying to pivot or figure out what people actually want to read.
What lessons did you learn in terms of teamwork and collaboration?
De La Espriella: There’s a lot you learn when putting together a print issue because everyone has different ideas. I might like a photo one way, but someone else might not. Or maybe it’s my story, but the designer is changing how it looks. That can be a challenge.
We’re a smaller newsroom, which actually makes things a little easier. I’m not trying to get 50 people to agree on something — it’s more like five to seven who are fully involved in the process. So it’s easier to reach a consensus.
As editor-in-chief, I try to understand everyone’s strengths, weaknesses and their interests. For example, I have writers, or even myself, who aren’t really into design. It’s not our strength, and that’s OK. So I try to map that out. In those situations, I give more power to the person who’s strong in that area.
Everyone understands that the designer has the final say on certain things, and I have the final say on others. That doesn’t mean we can’t have conversations, like if someone says, “Hey, I don’t think that front cover is going to communicate well.” That’s totally valid. Three brains work better than one.
It’s all about team management — listening to everyone’s ideas, but also recognizing expertise.
Cook: To give a little backstory on our first print issue, there was one meeting, just three days before our printer deadline, where our designer came back with nothing. We all went into emergency mode. It was stressful. Honestly, there was a lot of darkness in the newsroom.
But despite that, we were all focused on one thing: Getting the print issue out, no matter what.
That moment really showed the importance of knowing your team and having a shared mission. If even one person isn’t fully committed, it can drag the whole team down. Everyone has to be on board for the print issue or any big project.
Looking back at our last issue, we’ve been hungry for critiques. As designers or writers, something might look great to us, but a fresh pair of eyes can catch things we don’t see. Maybe the text is slightly off-center or the headline doesn’t quite land.
Being as harsh as possible, even though you know it could get a little emotional because it’s your work, not only helps produce solid content but also helps the person to learn a lesson from the mistake or a recommendation in those critiques.
How do you feel now that you're laying out your last issue?
De La Espriella: I feel thrilled. I’m very happy. I can definitely look back and say, “Yeah, we progressed, we learned.”
And on a personal level, when I first stepped into the newsroom, I had no idea how a print issue came together. I didn’t know anything about design. It seemed impossible. I figured we’d hire someone external who would just do all the crazy stuff — we’d only send PDFs, and that was it.
But we figured it out together. That’s really what we did. And we were transparent with our readers along the way.
If you stack our issues side by side, you’ll see improvements. Maybe small ones, but they’re there. We don’t misspell names anymore. At the beginning, we weren’t as meticulous with that.
It’s helped me understand: This requires a lot of work, but it can be done having a wonderful team. And like Michael said, making sure everyone’s committed at the same level.
If I’m being honest with you, I don’t know if the world wants to bring print back fully. Not just because of social media, but because of cost, environmental impact and convenience. Still, I think learning how to produce a print issue, even just once, is something every journalism student should experience.
There’s that moment when you realize: The layout has to go to the printer on the 20th. Not the 21st. It has to be the 20th. Or when you find out the newspapers shipped three days ago but won’t arrive in time — what are you going to do? How do you handle it with an external company?
All these experiences, not only the physical paper, per se, but just dealing with everything else, it’s a necessary experience, in my opinion, for a college student.
Cook: As multimedia journalism students, we have to adapt to the changes the industry is facing. I don’t think print is going to die, but it’s always going to evolve. Yes, social media and digital advertisements are more efficient, but as Sofia said, learning print skills is still valuable, especially for college students.
When you go into an internship or meet a future employer, being able to put down a print piece and say, “My name's on this, I know design, I know how to do XYZ,” it makes you versatile to have those skills outside of web publications.
What advice do you have for student newsrooms considering bringing print back?
De La Espriella: My biggest suggestion is to understand your audience and explore your options. Sometimes you think something is impossible or too expensive, but you might find a print company offering recycled paper that can print 500 copies for a 20,000-student campus, which is more than enough for a couple of times a semester.
There are also advertisers who can help cover the costs of printing. It’s not as difficult as it seems.
My biggest advice is not to rule print out completely, but also don’t dive into it blindly. Do your research. Evaluate the pros and cons and conduct a business analysis. Will it bring in revenue for the paper or will it be a big waste of paper?
If it works, go for it. Don’t be scared of trying. You might find that there’s still a lot left in the bins after printing. For us, it wasn’t the theme that caused this; it was the design.
Cook: My advice, both for print and beyond, is to always be on that hunt for critiques, no matter how harsh they are. How you take them is up to you.
Beyond the hunt for it, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. It helps you perfect your craft. When you enter the industry, you’ll have already made those mistakes, so you don’t make them later on.
It helps you perfect your craft, and when you enter the industry, you’ll have already made those mistakes, so you won’t repeat them later on.
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