NAA Aligns Technology Group
NAA is aligning its technology group to synchronize its products, services and conferences to better reflect issues raised by the Association’s Technology and Telecommunications Committee.
"We realize we need to improve the way we communicate our knowledge and expertise," says Tom Croteau, NAA’s senior vice president of technology. "Now we will be able to communicate more frequently and with a larger scope."
Under the new arrangement, dedicated program staff will work with in-house experts in new media, business systems, editorial systems, pre-press, press and materials, packaging and distribution, health and safety, and information technology to package and deliver information to members.
The group’s new mission statement is "to help newspapers optimize operations and master changing technologies."
"As a group, we are organized and energized to serve the industry," says Clark Robinson, NAA’s vice president of technology implementation.
The group has identified 43 goals, including revising its three-year plan; establishing programs for hiring, training and retaining technical talent; expanding industry training; improving communications with members; developing a knowledge-management system; and aligning committees, departments and products.
To help meet these goals, NAA is adding several positions, including
a director of technical talent and a knowledge manager, who will oversee
the development of a multi-media database that ultimately will aggregate
and provide solutions to the entire industry. 
A Bulky Press Buy
Newspaper groups have long known that buying in bulk for their individual properties often brings better deals. Now two groups have joined forces to gain still more clout at the bargaining table.
Two U.S. newspaper companies–Swift Newspapers Inc. of Reno and Seattle-based Pioneer Newspapers Inc.–shopped around joint proposals for four new presses. Along with the obvious benefit of pooling buying power, "we also believed that our staffs’ combined expertise would result in a...technologically advanced press line," explains David Lord, Pioneer’s president.
After narrowing the supplier field to two, the companies selected Dauphin Graphic Machines Inc. of Elizabethville, Pa., citing its "commitment to develop future technology," says Dick Larson, Swift’s chief executive officer.
Pioneer purchased two DGM-440 presses totaling 32 units and two folders. One is slated for Bear River Publishing Co., a new joint production facility that will print Pioneer’s dailies in Logan, Utah, and Pocatello, Idaho. The other will go to the Skagit Valley Herald in Mount Vernon, Wash.
Swift’s two DGM-440 presses, totaling 36 units and three folders, are earmarked for Colorado Mountain News Media in Eagle County, Colo., publisher of four dailies and four weeklies; and for Mount Rose Publishing Co. in Carson City, Nev., which produces two dailies and four weeklies.
It’s not Dauphin’s first experience with an unusual consortium
of publishers. The owners of four independent newspapers in Ohio recently
joined forces to build a single production center operating a DGM press,
though at presstime the facility wasn’t yet printing all four dailies.
Shaftless in Cincinnati
The Cincinnati Enquirer is going shaftless, but not in the pressroom.
The
Gannett Co. daily will be the first to install Dover, N.H.-based Heidelberg
Web Systems Inc.’s shaftless Magnapak inserter. Capable of processing
30,000 papers an hour, the 38-station inserter can be expanded to 80 hoppers
and accommodate up to four deliveries.
As in the pressroom, shaftless technology allows for simpler system design, improving downtime and maintenance. It also allows inserting hoppers to be placed in and out of service at production speeds.
"The ability to make adjustments on the fly, without tools, will
streamline the process of building large packages," says Dave Preisser,
the paper’s vice president of production.
A Mailroom Stands Alone
With growing numbers of inserts clogging its production center, the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader has come up with a solution.
It’s getting rid of them all.
The Knight Ridder daily has earmarked $11.8 million for a separate packaging facility that will receive, store and package all free-standing inserts. Advance sections of the newspaper will be trucked from the paper’s existing production center to the new 75,000-square-foot facility for inserting. They then will return to the old plant to be combined with live-run sections and distributed.
The new packaging facility will include $6.4 million in new equipment, replacing 20-year-old systems outpaced by insert growth. Once completed in first-quarter 2001, the new packaging facility will free up room at the existing plant for newsprint, which has been stored off-site for the past three years to accommodate the preprint crush.
As Publisher Timothy M. Kelly pointed out, "[These] are great problems
to have because they are the results of increased advertising insert business."
E Ink Pushes Phoenix Print Newspapers
To see electronic ink’s first newspaper-industry application, don’t rush out to the newsstand or fire up the Web browser.
Go grocery shopping.
As part of a three-month trial, The Arizona Republic will place in Phoenix retailers 50 promotional displays using the emerging electronic-ink technology. Powered by E Ink Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., the thin, paper-like displays provide changing news headlines and promote stories in the Republic and on its Web site, www.azcentral.com.
"We can instantly alert our readers to breaking news, let them know what they can expect to read about in tomorrow’s paper, and increase our circulation," explains Gena Zestrijan, the paper’s retail merchandising manager.
Measuring roughly 44 inches wide and 15 inches tall, the signs display two lines of type and are updated simultaneously via a wireless-pager network.
The display itself is composed of millions of white microcapsules dyed a dark color on one side; electrical current causes selected capsules to rotate to form an image.
E Ink’s use as a promotional tool was first tested by JC Penney last year (TechNews, January/February 2000, p. 28).
Company officials have predicted that the technology will be ready for
use in electronic books and newspapers within five years.
In BriefAtex Media Solutions of Bedford, Mass., is spinning off its Omnex content-management system. The newly formed Omnex Technologies Inc. subsidiary will focus on developing the XML-based multi-media system. That leaves Atex in charge of marketing, sales and support in its newly defined roles of system integrator, application-service provider and IT consultant. Good news and bad for Goss Graphic Systems. The Westmont, Ill., pressmaker celebrated in September the startup of its first keyless and shaftless U.S. installation, a 75,000-copy-per-hour keyless offset News-liner press at the Las Vegas Review-Journal (TechNews, July/August 1999, p. 19), and an order for a five-unit Colorliner press addition from El Dia, Puerto Rico’s largest publisher. But it also entered arbitration to resolve an escalating dispute with the Chicago Sun-Times, which Goss claims withheld payments and prevented it from finishing installation and acceptance testing of six Newsliner presses. Goss contends the paper’s decision to select a third-party inking system caused delays and degraded performance; in published reports, Sun-Times executives have accused Goss of breach of performance. Houston-based Enron Corp., which several years ago began offering publishers newsprint-hedging arrange-ments, launched Clickpaper.com, an online paper-industry marketplace that includes newsprint. It joins a growing field of business-to-business services, including PaperExchange. com, PaperLoop.com and an as-yet unnamed venture involving three of the largest U.S. paper companies (TechNews, May/June 2000, p. 6). Thomson continues divesting. Flywheel Media, an interactive division created earlier this year by combining Thomson Interactive Media and Thomson Target Media, will shut down following an un-successful search for a buyer. Koz.com of Durham, N.C., has merged with Internet Tradeline, bringing together online community and commerce services for 600-plus media partners. Wayne Bean, vice president of operations at Tucson Newspapers, has provided NAA with a project-management file from his recent 50-inch web conversion. The Excel document, essentially a detailed to-do list, can be downloaded from www.naa.org/technology/pressweb/GanttChart.xls. The New York Times Co. partnered with low-cost computer manufacturer PeoplePC to offer employees PCs, printers and Internet access for $11.95 per month; the Times is picking up the rest of the tab. And speaking of the once-Gray Lady, the Times has immortalized its 1997 move to color printing in verse. Penned by retired typesetter Carl Schlesinger, The New York Times Color March bears an uncanny, but perhaps coincidental, resemblance to another famous newspaper ditty. "Never mind that John Philip Sousa immortalized some newspaper in Washington with one of his marches," joked Times Talk, the paper’s in-house publication. Ready to sing along? Mr. Sousa, it seems, has left the building.
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