By T.G. BRANFALT, STEVE FELANO, KEIKO MIMURO, JESSICAN NICOSIA, RUSUDAN PANOZISHVILI, and BRITTANY SCHWEIKER
The Albany Times Union is preparing for a huge upgrade next March, as the Hearst-owned media company plans to install state-of-the-art printing presses at its Colonie plant. The presses were ordered January 13.
Along with its $14 million investment in new presses, the paper is working in many arenas to stay competitive. Journalists at the newspaper are focused on developing online media skills, while the company identifies new revenue streams and different methods of news delivery for readers.
A journalism class from The College of Saint Rose visited the Times Union last week to learn about what goes into producing a daily regional newspaper. During the tour, Greg Stapleton told students the newspaper is aggressively adapting to changing technologies while maintaining its commitment to readers. Stapleton, a Saint Rose graduate, and former editor of The Chronicle, is the education and community circulation manager at the paper.
The new Commander CL presses, manufactured by Koenig & Bauer AG, a German company, are expected to be operational in March of next year. The new presses will increase the numbers of pixels printed per page, which will result in readers seeing more detailed pictures and clearer text. Color photographs are expected to appear throughout the newspaper.
The new press will also give the Times Union the capability to print for larger newspapers with circulation in upstate New York and the northeast. If an agreement is made, the Times Union headquarters on Albany Shaker Road could serve as a printer for The New York Times, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.
“The new press uses a technology that’s known as off-set printing,” said Stapleton. “It’s faster, it’s much higher quality, it’s cheaper to print this way. Off-set printing will allow the newspaper to basically look like it’s in HD.”
The Times Union’s current printing technology uses steel and rubber plates, which, once inked, are pressed over the broadsheet. The Commander CL uses a similar plate technology, however the plates are designed to use less ink and up to 50 percent less oil than the current technology.
Printing time may be cut by as much as an hour, Stapleton said, “and there would be a huge reduction in plate costs.”
The current cost per plate for the Times Union is $5 – the new presses will cut that cost to $1 per plate.
While the Times Union is placing special focus on its printed product, the paper is also assessing the news it puts online, and how it gets there.
“We have changed from a newspaper to a news media company,” Stapleton said. “We are no longer just paper and ink. We can’t be – that’s not possible.”
In the newsroom, employees are developing competencies with multiple new media tasks. Photojournalists and staff writers alike are required to know how to shoot video, write, and take still photos. They are also expected to maintain a social media presence through sites like Twitter and Facebook.
Editors now post stories online at any time of day or night and include a variety of picture and video supplements. Smartphones allow photographers to send pictures quickly without coming back to the office. Stapleton sees picture-sharing websites like Tumblr and Pinterest as the new frontier of social media.
“They seem to understand that in order to stay competitive, they need to progress and move with technology,” said Alexander Englander, a graduate student on the tour. “They know that they need to become a news media (company), not just a newspaper.”
The audience, Stapleton said, plays a central role in how the news is delivered. A newspaper can’t exist without its readers – it’s how we make our money, it’s who reads our paper.
Graduate student Kellie McGuire commutes to Albany from out of town. “Today’s tour of the Times Union made me want to learn about communities in Albany, and made me realize the importance of the Times Union in the nearby community.”
Much of the publication’s transformation from a solely print medium to a combination print and online news outlet was spurred by the changing news consumption habits of its audience. The Times Union’s decision to offer a special Sunday print edition was also the product of audience demand. “We also realize that people have a lot of different options in the media field,” Stapleton said. “We need to be the most cost-effective option in that market.”
Now, about 60 to 65 percent of the newspaper’s total revenue comes from advertising in the hard copy of the newspaper, while another 15 to 20 percent comes from digital advertising, A newer revenue stream is derived from the digital services it offers customers. Now, the newspaper uses technology to help businesses appear higher in search engine result rankings, thus increasing their exposure to the public. “We need to change with the times,” said Stapleton. “Search engine optimization,” he said, is “one of those ways we can make money as a company without having to deal with the hardcopy paper, and still be very successful.”
Twenty-nine-year-old Alexandra Egorova is an international student from Russia. “This was my first experience of seeing the newspaper working process from inside,” she said. “The entire tour was very impressive and helpful to me.”
The tour at the Times Union usually begins with an introduction to two antique printing presses displayed in the lobby. One is a linotype machine from the late 1800s, which worked by dripping hot lead onto lettered blocks that were slid into place as an operator typed. The hot lead would cool on the blocks and harden, forming the plate that would be used to print the newspaper. Next to these bulky pioneering presses hang former regional papers from the turn of the century, such as the Albany Atlas, The Argus, and an edition in the Dutch language of Albany’s original settlers.
Those presses are a long way from the newspapers’ current focus on developing new means of delivery. Now readers can view multiple web versions of the Times Union on its web site, or using applications on the iPhone, iPad and iPod. “We are led by people who understand that we need to look forward in order to be successful,” said Stapleton.
