NAA's Technology SuperConference this March will zoom in on near- future technologies. Some pioneering newspapers offer visions of what that future looks like.
When people look at their work in fresh, innovative ways, next-horizon technologies are born. By creating new products---and new ways of producing old ones---the newspaper industry rises to the challenges of both traditional competitors and the newer media. And we always will, as long as we continue to create.
Many of our industry's most compelling production innovations will be on display at NAA's first annual SuperConference March 3-8 in Miami Beach. To preview this event, TechNews selected five near-future technologies from the SuperConference agenda and visited six newspapers experimenting with them today. They offer a detailed look at the products and processes that present new paths to greater efficiency and effectiveness.
These few newspapers and vendors represent the beginning of the story. They exemplify the rapid and irreversible development that promises to forever change the production and distribution of daily newspapers. Just as technology speeds the development of new ways of communicating, it promises to rapidly alter the way you do you job---whatever your responsibilities.
Dust-laden clips and photos from the morgue have been triggering researchers' allergies for years. If you haven't already abandoned this less-than-perfect system for preserving your newsroom's history, you soon will. Technical advances in archiving systems represent new product and revenue opportunities for forward-thinking newspapers as well as tremendous capabilities to better serve your newsroom employees in their day-to-day work.
The Telegraph Herald in Dubuque, Iowa, is integrating its new Nexis text-and-photo archiving system with its existing DEC/ DewarView editorial and pagination systems. The marriage has not been without its headaches---the file-header structure of the archiving system is incompatible with that of the pre-press systems, so text has to run through a "deprint" queue before it can enter the archive. And the newspaper is still looking for a software fix to speed up the photo-retrieval process by opening images in EPS instead of JPEG format.
Despite these difficulties, the project moved forward. Installation began on August 14, 1995, the library loaded the database by the beginning of September, and the newsroom has had ready access since mid-September.
The $150,000 price tag for two PCs, a server and software has been worth it, according to Steve McAuliff, the Telegraph Herald's manager for library services. Reporters and editors can access clips or local photos from almost any terminal in the newsroom.
The paper saves 90 to 95 percent of the text from its daily papers for electronic retrieval. And although it isn't keeping wire photos, it does archive all local photos used plus two or three others from the same shoot.
The future also looks bright, thanks to some good long-range planning. The photo archive has been partitioned into 600-megabyte units, which should ease the process of transferring the archive to compact disks. And because the paper expects to provide service to outside customers and wants to avoid potential copyright problems, it is maintaining two databases---one for syndicated material and one for locally produced copy.
If you plan a move to electronic archiving, McAuliff has two major recommendations. First, call other papers to get their opinion of your proposed system. Second, if you're planning to archive photos, be sure you get the photo department involved right from the start. A procedure that seems only slightly clunky to a librarian could prove to be a giant migraine for the folks who shoot photos.
When New York's Daily News decided to computerize its 75-year-old photo and negative collection---four million prints plus one million negatives and glass slides, each containing cryptic annotations and cutlines---it contacted a vendor, Applied Graphics Technologies. Clients would call the paper looking for photos of, for example, "Prohibition," explains Eric Meskaukus, the Daily News' director of photography. But while the paper's library had photos of the insides and outsides of bars, and of federal agents posing with confiscated whiskey barrels, none were cross-referenced.
To solve the problem, AGT is photocopying the front and back of each photo and subcontracting with a company called The Electronic Scriptorium, based in Leesburg, Va., for the next task. In a modern version of the large transcription projects their predecessors completed during the Dark Ages, nuns and monks (for real) read the notations from the backs of the photos and enter them into the archive with appropriate cross-referencing terms. Meanwhile, back in the newsroom, AGT digitizes the images.
The one-year project is progressing alphabetically and is now on the letter "H." Everything gets matched up in an electronic database on a CD-ROM jukebox.
Meskaukus says the new system will make it much easier to track down the right photo, since the system can sort through one million to two million images in a minute or two, providing access to as many as 500 photos that meet the researcher's criteria. If your newspaper is considering its own electronic photo-archive system, Meskaukus advises that projects of this length require a contract to ensure complete follow-though. He also echoes McAuliff in stressing that the needs of photo editors may be different from those of librarians.
"Librarians want to do text searches and narrow things down. I want to see more. I want to see Liz Taylor fat and Liz Taylor skinny," he says. To do this, you need to see a large number of pictures quickly, and the images must be of high quality---photo editors need enough detail to see facial expressions.
"There's no point in having speed," he cautions those considering such systems, "if you can't see what the pictures look like!"
Next-horizon technology doesn't have to be brand new and shiny---it can extend the life and improve the performance of what you're already using. When the Post-Tribune in Gary, Ind., found that the digital page packs on its 12-year-old press were starting to show signs of fatigue, the paper found that it could upgrade its technology for not much more than it would have cost to replace the original page packs, an expense of "substantially under half a million dollars." The paper worked with TKS USA to develop a new driver board to help the page packs communicate with a press-system upgrade that reduces startup waste.
Digital page packs are essentially pumps that provide ink for one page. They usually come in groups of eight per press unit when running black-and-white or 16 when running color. The problem with the Post-Tribune's older page packs was the amount of press waste that was produced before pressmen got their settings right.
Production Director George Shown says the new system is "the only ink-delivery system I know that can say precisely how much ink is going to be delivered out of the page pack. It's the only one with a stepper motor and a computer we don't have to touch. We don't even have to scan the negative---just go right from the raster-image processor to the press."
The system provides better precision in two ways. First, the new page packs have digitally controlled stepper motors for each ink orifice---one per column of type, or six per page. When it receives a pulse, the stepper motor rotates exactly 1.8 degrees, pushing a piston to pump the ink. To vary the amount of ink pumped, you simply vary the number of pulses. By contrast, the older method varied the ink pressure by changing the size of the ink orifice, a method that was not able to provide consistent results.
The digital page packs at the Post-Tribune are accompanied by the TKS TMPC press-control system. The controller presets ink by reading data from the RIP, scanners and imagers, computing the average ink density for the page, and then translating the density into a setting for the page packs. The unit that controls the ink density, located at the ink pump, links to the press control unit by serial communication lines. Every page that goes through the imager is identified by the computer and assigned a preset density value. Triggering a command key will preset the ink conditions for that page in the next edition. The TMPC system also controls the dampening and compensator systems.
George Shown expects that after a year, the paper will have stored over 5,000 different press configurations, each of which can be recalled at the touch of a key. The new system will reduce the time and agony of laying out the press run. It also will cut printed waste because all the ink settings, as well as the cutoffs and margins, will be correct at startup. Shown expects that once the system is fully operational, waste will drop by 25 percent---enabling the investment to pay for itself in just four years. At that point, faster startups and increased press throughput will be icing on the cake.
Brighter, clearer, cleaner colors!
This probably sounds like the laundry-detergent ad your paper ran last week. But it's also the way Rob Strabala, product-services director for the Herald & Review in Decatur, Ill., describes the output of his paper's direct-to-plate flexo process.
The paper started by running black-and-white pages through its KBA-Motter Colormax press and moved to color in December 1994. It is partnering with NAPP Systems Inc. on the direct-to-plate project. Strabala says this is only natural, since the Herald & Review is owned by Lee Enterprises, which also owns NAPP. And while the direct-to-plate system was custom designed for the paper, NAPP and Lee Enterprises plan to design a marketable product based on what they learn at the Herald & Review. "We get some benefits, and NAPP gets some benefits," he concludes.
Strabala says the paper is taking on a number of other projects concurrently, including new editorial and advertising systems. "The goal is to become commercial printers, with the newspaper as a big, daily, regular customer," he says. "These projects fit that philosophy."
Strabala also says that flexo is basically a more sophisticated version of the anilox-roller technology the paper has been using for 10 years. The flexo process produces the bright, crispy colors the paper feels it needs to get into commercial work.
The brilliant results of the flexo process come from its water-based inks and the fact that the ink is transferred directly to the paper and dries almost instantly. In offset, of course, oil-based ink goes first to a blanket and then to the paper.
Flexo's water-based inks can be more environmentally friendly, producing less hazardous waste. And there is less paper waste since flexo, unlike offset, does not require ink-and-water balancing. Says Dave Roberts, NAPP's research scientist for this project, "You just turn on the press, and conditions are properly set within five to 10 copies. The paper savings are greater, even in the face of technical improvements in the offset process."
While flexo is possible without the direct-to-plate process, Strabala says that direct-to-plate provides higher quality, since the image goes through fewer generations before it is finally laid on paper. The system receives its input directly from a Macintosh network, producing a plate instead of a positive or negative. Strabala expects that the platesetter will be delivered in the spring of this year and may require a different polymer coating. Strabala does say, though, that the quality is "unbelievably good for this early in the game. The output already looks good, and the plates last through an entire run of 55,000 copies."
In the 1990s, our business language is increasingly peppered with phrases like "just-in-time," "work-in-progress," "push-pull" and "demand-driven production." But what does it all mean to newspapers?
Rick Surkamer, director of metro circulation at the Chicago Tribune and guru of push-pull production, says, "The way we've done business is to primarily 'push' stuff out there---in single copy, for example. We push out as many copies to as many locations as we can. We're pushing out our inventory. We push our nonsubscriber products into people's households with advertiser stuff---no one's asked for it."
By contrast, he says, the subscriber wants to "pull" the news: "I want it now, gotta have it here and now. And we break our necks to make this marvelous thing happen." The first application of "pull" in the newspaper-production process has been in single-copy sales, where hand-held inventory-control devices download information to the plant to aid in calculating production needs.
More recently, the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, persuaded in part by Surkamer, has begun to explore the potential of demand-driven, or push-pull production. Since much of what they are doing remains in process, Vice President of Operations Bob Rogers can only explain the ideal state of pull-driven newspaper production: "The truck driver drives up to the dock and tells the system 'I'm here.' Then production starts for that truck---the inserter creates the packages for that truck. The truck is pulling production. In the push environment, the papers are produced and ready before the truck is there."
Theoretically, there are several benefits for the newspaper. Because the production of a truck's unique load doesn't begin until the driver electronically signals the inserter, the plant is not producing something for a late truck while an early truck waits at the dock. And the labor costs of moving newspapers around as trucks roll in and out are virtually eliminated.
You can use it in circulation. You can use it in marketing. You can use in ad sales. You can even use it in editorial.
And that's exactly what two sister companies in Salina, Kan., plan to do with their new Decision Mark Proximity zoning and route-design system. Training will begin in mid-January at the Salina Journal and at MarketAide Services Inc., a full-service advertising, direct-mail, database-marketing and research agency. If all goes well, seven other Harris Enterprises newspapers in Kansas will follow, eventually providing a statewide network.
Kathleen Atkinson, director of direct mail at MarketAide, says, "Our goal is to have the best list in this retail trade zone." In addition, they will have a system to make the list useful. Windows-based software will provide cartographic, third-party and 1990 census data. It will offer population, housing, economic and agricultural variables. It will prepare database reports, lists, and custom maps and charts. Finally, it will produce statistical, cluster and regression analyses.
The Journal and MarketAide plan to conduct a campaign to collect additional data about nonsubscribers in the paper's 14-county retail trade zone. After that, they will rent lists to pick up any missing names and then append lifestyle demographics. From there, different departments will use the data to produce different kinds of information. There will be one workstation at the Journal and one at MarketAide.
The newsroom can use the system to create maps and charts for newspaper graphics, pinpoint news on a map, enhance local and wire stories with information from the database, and identify news sources in households close to news events. For example, Atkinson says, reporters could call a nearby neighbor to get an on-the-spot account of a house fire.
The system could also be used to map carrier routes---street by street and household by household. This would be particularly helpful to a substitute carrier when the regular carrier is sick.
Atkinson says that in the paper's circulation department, the system will be used to increase revenue by adding subscribers and improving retention. The first step will be to segment and model the current subscriber base. Then those characteristics will be matched to nonsubscribers to find the best prospects, who will be targeted by niche campaigns. The agency will also use the system to create a profile of "churners" and develop campaigns to improve retention. Telemarketing costs will likely drop as the system helps identify people who repeatedly subscribe at a discount, cancel when the discount expires and then resubscribe at another discount.
Those kinds of capabilities can also be helpful in ad sales---providing material that sales people can use to inform advertisers about the thoroughness of the paper's market coverage. In addition, it can be used to sell integrated advertising packages, where newspaper ads reach subscribers and direct mail hits nonsubscribers.
Atkinson predicts that Harris will see a payback on total system expenses (hardware, software, data packages, training, installation, consulting, development and operating costs) within 39 months.
These innovative newspapers and vendors represent just a few of the projects that promise to transform newspaper production and distribution. At NAA's SuperConference in Miami Beach, you can meet with many other newspaper professionals who can help you find silver linings in your cloudy operational areas and explore what may await your newspaper just over the horizon.
For more information or registration materials, e-mail NAA's James Balda, click here for SuperConference information, or call NAA's Meeting Management Department at (703) 648-1282.
L. Carol Christopher is president of Christopher Communications in Berkeley, Calif., and a correspondent for The Cole Papers. E-mail is cchristo@weber.ucsd.edu; phone, (510) 444-7841.
Kathleen Atkinson, MarketAide Services Inc., P.O. Box 500, Salina, Kan. 67402-0500. E-mail, marketad@tri.net; phone, (913) 825-7161.
Eric Meskaukus, Daily News, 450 W. 3rd, New York, N.Y. 10001. Phone, (212) 210-1510; fax, (212) 949-2120.
Steve McAuliff, Telegraph Herald, P.O. Box 688, Dubuque, Iowa 52004-0688. E-mail, dubuqueth@aol.com; phone, (319) 588-5770; fax, (319) 588-5739.
Dave Roberts, NAPP Systems Inc., 360 S. Pacific St., San Marcos, Calif. 92069. Phone, (619) 744-4387; fax, (619) 489-1853.
Robert W. Rogers, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 333 E. Grace St., P.O. Box 85333, Richmond, Va. 23293. Phone, (804) 559-8201; fax, (804) 775-8059.
George Shown, Post-Tribune, 1065 Broadway, Gary, Ind. 46402. Phone, (219) 881-3004.
Robert W. Strabala, Herald & Review, 601 E. William St., P.O. Box 311, Decatur, Ill. 62525. Phone, (217) 421-6956; fax, (217) 421-6913.
Rick Surkamer, Chicago Tribune, 777 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60610-2489. E-mail, brick777@aol.com; phone, (312) 222-2320.
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