By Sydney Paluch
Contributing Writer
The foremost advancement in newspaper printing is coming to the Capital Region. Currently being installed in the Times Union building in Colonie N.Y., the new offset printing press is scheduled to go online on Mar. 19th.
Saint Rose Journalism 1 students were lucky enough to be one of the last scheduled tours allowed to see the old press before it will be replaced. Taken on a tour by Saint Rose graduate and community circulation manager Greg Stapleton, the students also learned about all aspects of the newsroom during a tour on Monday.
Directly inside the lobby of the Times Union sits two printing presses from the turn of the century. Standard for several hundred years, those presses worked “exactly like a rubber stamp”, Stapleton said. However, those outdated machines are just for show as the currently used Gross letter press would be unable to fit in the lobby; it is three stories high. Letter presses use a system of transferring print onto plastic plates from films. The new press will operate on offset printing, which utilizes lasers to compete with current computer technology.
With the new press, “prints will be near perfect, because the opportunities for error aren’t there,” Stapleton said.
With 350 employees, the Times Union is the largest news organization in the Capital Region.
“We cannot exist without our readers,” Stapleton said.
Those readers have made Timesunion.com the third most visited website in the Capital Region, right behind Google and Yahoo. Students learned that the Times Union staff chiefly covers the Capital Region, although national stories will be included as well if there is a local angle.
As such, the new press was a logical investment. Not only will production time be dramatically decreased, there will be an increase of feature articles and the press will hopefully increase revenue for the paper by printing extra advertising.
Each edition of the Times Union contains approximately the same amount of print as a 320 page paperback book. Yet a paperback will cost an average of $15, and a newspaper only $1. The vast cost difference between the two is covered by advertising in papers.
“Advertising pays the people at the paper,” said Stapleton.
A quick search on Google will result in numerous matches for “offset printing” in Albany; however, there is no other local organization or business that has a press of this magnitude.
“It is above and beyond what anyone else in the area will have,” said the Lane Press Inc. receptionist.
Lane Press Inc. is a full service commercial offset printer located in Albany. “Offset printing is the most common in commercial work. So they are capitalizing on a market that is already there.”
Positive attitudes toward the new press are common, even among local competitors.
“We are happy to see newspapers investing in new presses and the print product,” said Daniel Beck, general manager of the Daily Gazette said.
Known as the “Locally Owned Voice of the Capital Region”, the Daily Gazette produces a daily print edition in addition on their online site, and has been in business for 118 years. None of the contacted printing companies expressed any concern of a threat from the new Times Union printing press.
“I don’t think the press will affect Lane, because we deal smaller, we don’t even touch those quantities,” Lane Press said.
Students reacted positively to the wide variety of printing presses as well.
“It’s like the presses have personalities, and it is saddening to know that the old ones have to go, but with the new technology there has to be advances for the Times Union’s,” said Ariana Wilson a communications major at Saint Rose. “Plus, the new presses look like something out of Willy Wonka. They were so new and clean!” she said.
Their enthusiasm is understandable. The new press will not only bring increased revenue to the Times Union, but also to the Capital Region as a whole. It is a hopeful sign to papers everywhere, as well as communications majors in college and beyond.
“The new press will be the newest, most advanced technology in North America. No one else will be so advanced,” Stapleton said.