The Gazette Finds Cash in Comics

by Lisa Rabasca

In a state known for its open farmland and gently rolling plains, it’s no surprise The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, craved more space for its operations group.

Two presses and one inserter were once crammed into 41,100 square feet of piecemeal space at the newspaper’s downtown office at Third Avenue and Fifth Street. One press was in the basement, the other was tucked between the basement and first floor, and the inserter sat on the ground level.

"The downtown location was landlocked," says Steve Schmitz, manager of the paper’s network services and computer systems. Todd Griffith, day packaging and finishing manager, admits that half of his time was spent organizing space rather than putting out the paper.

In late 1996, The Gazette brought in a consultant to help expand the packaging area. But the newspaper, published since 1883, soon learned its color capacity also was limited.

"Because the press was put in with a shoehorn, we couldn’t get more equipment in to get the color quality we wanted," says Tom Happ, process and quality administrator.

It takes two hours to prepare the press for the paper. Press operator Paul Gilchrist checks the comics as they exit.

That’s when the paper’s parent company, Gazette Communications, stepped in. It also owns Iowa Farmer Today, KCRG-TV9, KCRG-AM 1600 radio, Interactive Media Inc. (iowa.com) and Publications Inc., publisher of the Penny Saver and Community News Advertiser. With a companywide approach in mind, Gazette Communications ultimately spent $50 million upgrading press and packaging equipment. It also decided to move the 220-person operations group offsite and run it as an entity separate from the newspaper.

To accommodate more commercial work, Gazette Communications bought a single-width, shaftless Universal 70 press from Goss Graphics Systems Inc. of Westmont, Ill. Coincidentally, its renovated 210,000-square-foot facility six miles from downtown at 4700 Bowling St. is Goss’ former Cedar Rapids plant. The 42-acre site provides room for future growth, says Gazette President, Chairman and Publisher Joe Hladky. Currently, 60,000 square feet of the facility is unfinished and used mainly for storage. Goss, meanwhile, moved its own plant across the street.

With a new facility, equipment and operating philosophy, the operations group now prints the Gazette plus a variety of commercial jobs, including Sunday comics sections for 126 newspapers across the country.

"The new press and configuration makes it possible to print numerous jobs at once," says Peg Schmitz, operations director. "We can run commercial jobs while we run the newspaper, and we do commercial work six days a week."

SEPARATION ANXIETY

The Universal 70 provides higher quality printing, but the staff has found the shaftless press requires considerably more maintenance than previous presses. Goss provided six weeks of on-site training before the press went live.

The move to Bowling Street was gradual. Construction began in October 1997, and the staff started training on the new press the following September. But the newspaper wasn’t printed on the new press until June 1999–nearly a year after training began.

The incremental approach let the Gazette’s editorial and advertising staff get used to several substantial changes, including being treated like one of the operations group’s commercial customers.

"The operations group works with editorial as they would any other client," Hladky says. "The Gazette is charged for services–changes, color, etc.–like any other client."

But probably the biggest change for editorial, says Schmitz, was getting used to not being able to run down to the basement to check each page. "Three months before we went to the new facility, pre-press pretended they had already moved and wouldn’t let editorial see the pages so they would get used to doing a color proof before sending an image out to Bowling Street," she says.

Since pagination is not part of operations, pages are still composed downtown by editorial and advertising staff. Initially, negatives were produced at the downtown location and driven to Bowling Street, though that, too, is now done remotely. Matching pages are output in pairs, eliminating the need to find the matching page and strip the negatives together.

"We reached a big level of efficiency with page pairing," says Rob Peacock, SII systems administrator. "We no longer need two people to strip the pages together. That has really helped with the move."

The biggest challenge associated with the move has been communication, says Elizabeth Hladky, ad-design supervisor. "When the newspaper was first printed at Bowling Street, we were very heavy on double-checks and learning common problems like which fonts and graphics tend to disappear," she says. "Communication is always a challenge, especially across shifts, but now we know who to call and when they are available."

Peacock agrees communication can be tricky at times. "You’re here, they’re out there." But, he says, people are open-minded and willing to talk through concerns. "There’s a lot of checking in with staff at both locations by e-mail and phone."

FUNNY PAGES

The Gazette usually packages 20-to-30 zones, but has the capacity to do 110-to-115 zones.

The drive to Bowling Street takes about 10 minutes and, on this mid-November day, the season’s first snowflakes fall from a steel-gray sky. A sign along the highway tells visitors that Cedar Rapids is the "city of five seasons"–the fifth season being "time to enjoy life."

Inside the Bowling Street facility, pre-press is stripping together the Penny Saver (it’s not yet paginated), while comics are running on the Universal 70 press.

The press is massive–three stories high, three-quarters of a block long and 386 tons. With nine towers and three folders, Gazette Communications says it’s the largest shaftless single-width press in the United States.

"It is the first configuration of its kind," says Happ, "a single-wide press with double-wide folders for the newspaper."

Gazette Communications deliberately chose the single-width configuration to accommodate more commercial work, a trend repeated in recent years by scores of other dailies. At its top speed, the Universal 70 can print 70,000 copies per hour–perhaps a bit excessive for printing a 65,180-circulation newspaper.

But the press also is used to print the Sunday comics for 126 newspapers from across the country, courtesy of a commercial-printing arrangement with King Features Syndicate of New York City that began last January.

"King Features was looking for someone they could partner with, someone who knew the newspaper business," says Schmitz. "Who better than a newspaper doing commercial work?"

Comics are printed in two 10-hour shifts every day except Fridays and some Saturdays. Two weeks’ worth of comics are printed for each newspaper, then shrink-wrapped on pallets for easy transport. Most are trucked to newspapers on the East Coast and in the South, though the Gazette’s comics go as far as Bermuda, where a publisher has them shipped in by way of New York City.

When the operations group first began printing the comics, Griffith says, it was not unusual to see employees leaning against a skid reading them during breaks. "But that doesn’t happen as much anymore," he says.

The Goss press is three stories high and three-quarters of a block long.

The operations group also prints The Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s five-day-a-week newspaper. "We usually run theirs right after the Gazette," says Schmitz. Other commercial work includes class schedules, other high-school and college newspapers, some car-racing publications, retail inserts and classified publications.

"Operations has a commercial-sales staff that oversees print sales," says Schmitz. "As they develop a marketing program, they will look for customers who fit with newspaper production."

An example of an ideal commercial job for the operations group, Schmitz says, is a four-to-eight-page broadsheet, such as a grocery or retail insert.

HIGH MAINTENANCE

The transition to a shaftless press wasn’t effortless. Press workers who previously toiled on the Gazette’s less automated presses require ongoing training, says Kevin Zacek, press-manufacturing manager.

"We know this much," he says, holding his thumb and forefinger a half-inch apart, "of this much," he says, holding his arms shoulder-width apart.

The Community News Advertiser is only partially paginated.

Goss provided a six-week, on-site training program before the press went online and kept a trainer in Cedar Rapids for a year. Gazette Communications also sent one of its system administrators to Finland for a two-week training course.

While providing higher quality printing, the shaftless press also requires considerably more general maintenance and cleaning than the previous presses, a Goss Metro used to print The Gazette and a Goss Community still used for some commercial work, says Zacek. Less than a foot away, a press operator is on his hands and knees cleaning out ink and debris before the next run. His rubber gloves covered in cyan ink, he kneels on cardboard stained with bright blue splotches.

It takes two hours to prepare the press for the newspaper, and 45 minutes to change from the first edition–trucked 20 miles away to Iowa City–to the second edition, delivered locally to Cedar Rapids. The first run begins at 7:30 p.m.

Packaging starts buzzing around the same time. "We usually do 20-to-30 zones," says Griffith, "but we have the capacity to do 110-to-115 zones. Even Parade magazine is zoned."

For its new facility, Gazette Communications purchased two inserters and a stitcher trimmer from Heidelberg Web Systems of Dover, N.H. Less than two weeks before Thanksgiving, pallets loaded with preprints waiting to be inserted fill the plant, but there’s still plenty of room to walk around.

"When we were downtown, at this time of the year, we would have just a one-person-wide aisle to walk through with everything stacked up," says Carolyn Keller, night-packaging manager. "It was a constant battle for space."

MOVING AHEAD

Since installing the new press, Gazette Communications’ commercial work has grown 150 percent. Today, 40 percent of the operation group’s press capacity is used to print The Gazette, and 60 percent is devoted to commercial work. And Gazette Communications isn’t finished metamorphosing.

The company will add another folder and two additional towers this summer to allow the operations group to take on even more commercial work. Operations currently runs one commercial job while printing the newspaper, but the new folder and towers will allow operations to run two commercial jobs and the Gazette simultaneously, says Schmitz.

These additions were planned when the press was first purchased, but Gazette wanted to put them off until there was enough commercial work, Schmitz says.

To attract more work, particularly around the holidays, Gazette Communications may buy a shaftless inserter from Heidelberg. One of the operations group’s goals is to reduce hand inserting, adds Schmitz. There is also discussion of going computer-to-plate within the next year. "It’s a natural progression," says Publisher Hladky. While the operations group is ready to make the transition, some work remains, particularly with the Penny Saver, which is still pasted up, and the Community News Advertiser, which is only partially paginated.

Long-term plans call for eventually moving the entire family of Gazette companies, including the radio and television stations, to the Bowling Street facility, says Hladky. In the meantime, the operations group has a handle on its new technology, says Schmitz, and is ironing out the final bugs.

"We have a lot of confidence that we can take on something new," she says. "We’re just ready to go."  

Rabasca is TechNews associate editor. E-mail, rabal@naa.org.

TechNews Volume 7, Number 1: January/February 2001

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