As is sometimes the case in the news biz, we in Sun Gazette-land this week went to an alternate printer.
This one is in Delaware, so the rumor is that all our copies are being printed on 100% recycled classified documents from Joe Biden’s garage. (Hey-yo!)
From the outside looking on, one might think that the printing biz would have standardized its page sizes, but oh no. Every printer is just a little bit different. Which means the pages we send this printer are just a smidge wider and a smidge shorter – maybe 2% in each direction – than our previous printer.
No big whoop-de-doo, but it does mean we have to be working off revised templates as we place stories, photos and (most important!) ads on the pages.
It’s another issue those in the online-only world don’t have. But hey, print is forever; online, by contrast, is just one Russian/Chinese cyberattack away from destruction. And never trust the Canadians, either …
For many years back in the day, we were printed by Springfield Offset, a division of Gannett. Boy, that was good printing! But alas, Gannett opted to shut it down (a decade ago, maybe) as part of the overall retrenchment of newspaper publishers everywhere.
SPEAKING OF THE NEWS BIZ: The FOX News Website yesterday ran a brief article about layoffs at The Washington Post, and some of the online responses showed (perhaps no surprise) that readers didn’t exactly understand how this whole thing works.
(FOX continues to include reader comments while many other news organizations have abandoned them, realizing they attract trashy people who contribute little to the bottom line. But I admit that I do enjoy reading some of the often kooky responses from that group.)
One FOX respondent noted that daily newspapers were passé (which is kinda true), but then didn’t connect the fact that many of them continue to employ, albeit in reduced numbers, people who churn out the news coverage that eventually ends up online.
As to the ongoing decline of the biz? As we say here at the Sun Gazette: “You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” (Good luck with us going anywhere: We’re like cockroaches — we’ll be here even after Armageddon!)
– Scott McCaffrey