A letter to our readers

After nearly 56 years, The Oracle will no longer be in print. ORACLE PHOTO/ALEXANDRA URBAN

With a mission to tell the university’s stories to its community, a group of enthusiastic students founded The Oracle and rolled out its first paper in 1966. 

The conception of their vision was brought to life in a landscape that predated the computer, cell phone and internet. As a result, the team amassed over 40 members who were committed to individually organizing and pasting every page of the paper, five days a week.

Now, beginning Aug. 22, the first day of the fall 2022 semester, The Oracle will be a completely digital publication. 

There will be no more print editions as we will keep the spirit of storytelling alive by publishing stories on our website four days a week — Monday through Thursday.

To begin the transition away from print, in spring 2016 The Oracle went from printing four days a week to two. This continued until the pandemic when we were forced to indefinitely cease print production alongside in-person instruction. And although we returned to printing once a week in fall 2021, the pickup was outpaced by the attention we had been receiving online since the lockdown. 

The Oracle’s social media following grew exponentially in 2020 as it was the only way readers could get USF news about COVID-19 regulations and guidance while away from campus. This revealed to us how important our online presence is in our digitized world.

To continue The Oracle’s trend of adapting to the times, we have updated our web layout to make it more reader-friendly, appealing and competitive with other online news sources.  

Since our focus has shifted from putting together a print newspaper to our online presence, photography, video and other digital content will be emphasized more.

To stay up to date on USF news, please follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter which delivers a roundup of the top stories of the week.

We want to provide the campus community with as much information as possible, but we also need to hear from our readers. If you have a story tip, please email or DM us on social media.