Do you sometimes lie awake at night, wondering how to make your newspaper better and more profitable? It's a common malady--focusing on the problems of the industry so hard that it affects your personal life, well-being and even health.
The Newspaper Association of America shares your pain.
The biggest questions of the newspaper industry will be discussed and debated at the second annual Newspaper Operations SuperConference, to be held Jan. 12-17, in the Hilton at Walt Disney World Village in Orlando, Fla.
The SuperConference has tracks for every facet of newspaper operations: pre-press and health & safety (which run concurrently Jan. 12-14), press and materials (Jan. 14-15) and post-press (Jan. 15-17).
What about the newspaper business is keeping you somnambulant? Here are a dozen questions keeping many newspaper executives up at night:
1. How can I improve my reproduction quality?
Sessions
will be held in the pre-press and press-and-materials tracks discussing such
issues as color management, color profiling, proper ink/water balance, setting
your press baseline, how materials affect quality and the issues of quality in
flexographic reproduction. By attending both tracks, you will be able to start
improving your reproduction quality immediately--and pleasing advertisers in the
process.
2. How can I paginate soon?
In the format of a TV game
show, expert panelists in the pre-press track will answer dozens and dozens of
questions (some provided by you, the audience) on the issues of pagination. This
will be a fast-paced and fun way to learn just about everything worth knowing
about newspaper pagination.
3. What are the hot new technologies in newspaper publishing?
All
four tracks will have their own individual sessions on the latest and greatest:
in pre-press, photo formats, HTML conversion and data broadcasting; in health
and safety, shop towel contaminants, environmental subtractive plates and zero
discharge technologies; in press and materials, flying plate changers,
on-cylinder imaging, press-configuration software and computer to press; in
post-press, collating and plastic wrap, finishing, inserting and outsourcing.
4. Will microzoning improve my advertising revenue?
The
executives at The Hartford Courant, who have implemented the concept of zones
down to the sides of residential blocks, will sit on a panel during the
post-press track and discuss the pluses and minuses they've seen. Get the inside
scoop on one of the most important distribution issues our industry faces.
5. What will happen if OSHA visits my plant?
Two
health-and-safety track sessions are devoted to OSHA issues, including a
20-minute quiz to see what you know about OSHA regulations and a mock trial
(you're the jury) involving an accident at a plant and who is negligent or
responsible.
6. What should I do about this Internet thing?
A
primer on the topic of building a World Wide Web site for your newspaper has
been scheduled in the pre-press track.
7. What if there's a natural disaster?
The
health-and-safety track provides a session on emergency action plans--how to
write them, how to keep them up-to-date and how to implement them. In addition,
newspaper executives will give first-hand accounts of how they continued to
publish in the aftermath of a major flood and a hurricane.
8. Should we abandon film and go with digital cameras?
Another
pre-press-track primer is devoted to the issue of digital cameras--the latest
makes and models of cameras and how they work--and will provide a full set of
course materials to take home.
9. Should I build a new mailroom?
The post-press track
will have a session devoted to the packaging-and-distribution operation of the
future. Industry experts will have a frank discussion of strategic issues and
future trends in post-press. They'll discuss database marketing, systems
integration, address-specific newspapers and a wealth of other topics.
10. If I build a new mailroom, should I build a new pressroom?
In
the press-and-materials track, panelists will discuss the latest press
installations in both North and South America. The Tulsa World will explain its
decision to go with a shaftless press, a Latin American newspaper will talk
about a recent installation, and one newspaper will give its business reasons
for shifting from a double-wide to a single-wide press.
11. What is the status of computer to plate?
The
Newspaper Association of America and IFRA, the INCA-FIEJ Research Association,
are conducting a joint study on computer to plate. An update on this study will
be delivered in a pre-press track session, and computer-to-plate implementation
issues will be examined, along with plate calibration and plate linearization.
12. What can we do about our lack of ergonomic furniture?
Both
the federal OSHA and Cal/OSHA have released standards on workplace ergonomics,
and this health-and-safety-track session will spell them all out for you. The
Houston Chronicle will also talk about its ergonomic innovations, and The New
York Times will show off its workstation redesign.
In addition, each of the tracks will have its own keynote address that will highlight the most important issues, as well as a follow-up "buzz session," which will allow you to engage in an informal discussion of everything heard on the track.
Also, there will be sessions about electronic advertising, using new media to handle health-and-safety training, violence in the workplace, the outlook for newsprint supply, trends in newsprint, production planning software, planning and control systems, work teams and new ideas for post-press.
So, if you're a sleep-deprived general manager or operations executive, there is something for you at the SuperConference--and with any luck, you'll gain enough knowledge and peace of mind to get some sleep on the plane ride home.
Answers should be in the form of a question: This article's writer is an industry consultant, a contributing editor to TechNews and will be doing his Alex Trebek impression during Pagination Imagination at the NAA Operations SuperConference January 13.
©1997 Newspaper Association of America. All rights reserved.