Over the past few decades, print journalism has been reworked on a global scale and Harvard-Westlake has witnessed it firsthand.
The Foyer Flyer began in the late 1960s. Harvard middle school students published an edition of the newspaper once a month for over 30 years. The Foyer Flyer carried information regarding the lower campus which, at the time, consisted of seventh and eighth grade students. The standalone paper ran on an independent schedule and was instructed in an asynchronous manner, meeting occasionally for layout and design.
In the ‘80s, Shawn Landres ’90 was the Editor-in-Chief of the Foyer Flyer. For some time, Landres noticed a fault in the outdated system that was being used to put the paper together.
“We would type up the stories, then we would cut them out on paper and lay them out on storyboards. Then we took those layouts to the printer to generate the newspaper.” Landres said. “I thought that was ridiculous.”
By the mid-eighties, cutting-edge technology was rapidly appearing all around. New inventions like the Mac caught Landres by surprise. He had a strong desire to bring a more efficient work ethic into the construction of the newspaper, and he believed to have found the answer: PageMaker, a computerized publishing program.
Landres recalls introducing PageMaker to Foyer Flyer staff adviser Donna Rowland.
“One of my strongest memories is of convincing the school to buy PageMaker.” Landres said. “I had this brand new contraption called a Mac which had just been released, and PageMaker was one of the first major business software and public publishing solutions.”
Within a year, the Foyer Flyer had completely transferred from tangible to virtual, complex to innovative. The lower school publications team was proud of the productivity that was immediately brought into the workspace. This was a momentous milestone for the Foyer Flyer.
Fast forward three decades to December 2022: Social entrepreneur Shawn Landres ’90 paid a visit to the Harvard-Westlake middle school campus, now with grades seven through nine. Landres spent time speaking with students as they crafted the Spectrum newsmagazine, Volume 30. Spectrum reporters have been reliant on tools such as InDesign, Flow, and Google Drive to communicate and collaborate effectively at any distance.
In the span of 60 years, a countless number of journalistic elements have been modified and updated to suit the times. For years to come, the process will likely continue to shift in unpredictable ways. However, community members have created a legacy of meaningful publications with purpose and integrity strong enough to stand the test of time.