A sort of Fleet Street pilgrimage took place on a recent wet night when a group of FT reporters headed to a nondescript warehouse in Ball, a cab driver in Stratford and the Thames nowhere to be found.

The team spent a lot of time on digital screens compiling on the FT’s “pink” print edition, and before closing its doors for the last time on Friday, they witnessed the FT’s St Clements printing house. The last copy. night.

After a decade of ownership by the FT, the site is being decommissioned, with the machines being shipped as spare parts to other print shops that still exist. Like the FT’s other print sites around the world, its UK edition will now be produced in a contract slot at another site.

An hour earlier, the editors of the print newspapers sat at the FT news station in Bracken House in the City of London, deftly handling the eye-catching headlines before releasing their front pages to the press. Now, the same text comes in sheet metal, ready to be attached to a printing press so thousands of copies can be produced.

Although most of the team had been with the FT for years, no one had visited the print site before.

The FT started printing on pink paper in 1893 as a way to differentiate itself from rival Financial News and to save money by not bleaching the paper, a tradition that has endured.

At one point, the printing press of the Financial Times rumbled under the newsroom in the Bracken House opposite St Paul’s Cathedral. While most FT content can now be read on mobile phones and laptops, the print edition has a permanent, loyal following and holds a place at the heart of the FT Group.

As the printing presses started running, the dry copies of the Financial Times began an elaborate dance in the vast warehouse spaces that went up and down the huge room, on long tracks. It’s a fascinating and exciting moment, as the newspaper bursts out of the machine, seemingly eager to reach readers.

While news production in 2022 is digital, fast-paced and ever-changing, there is still something magical about seeing carefully reported and edited stories and photos delivered to paper.

Skilled technicians monitor the output and make adjustments to achieve perfect registration, the 2-kilometer-long spool of Swedish paper is pushed into place and begins to turn, and the machine begins spitting out copies as the noise erupts.

In less than the time it takes to flip a page, the next day’s Financial Times is packed into crates, trolleyed onto waiting vans, and landed on newsstand shelves the next morning. and doorway.