FAST FACTS New press was a $6.4 million project. Can print color on more pages. Was installed while printing on the old press. The Metrocolor tower units came from Boston. The Headliner Offset units were purchased from Denver. Old press was red; new one is a color known as Cosmo Blue. Old press was flexography. New one is an offset press. Took 16 months to complete. As many as 60 people worked on the press installation. Pressroom walls had to be removed to enable moving of large press pieces into place. They will be rebuilt by the end of November.
Read more Gerber: A fresh, modern look for your newspaper
Notice anything different about today’s Times Free Press? A fresher look, maybe? More colorful? More vibrant?
OK, we admit it. We had a little work done.
What you’re holding in your hands is the result of two different projects, each of which took more than a year to complete, and each intertwined with the other.
One was the installation of our new printing press, a $6.4 million project and massive undertaking that was roughly like rebuilding an airplane’s jet engines while it’s 30,000 feet in the sky and stuffed with passengers.
The second was a redesign of the paper’s look – a face lift, if you will – to take advantage of the improvements our new press offer us. So you’ll see a lot of new things in the paper, from the look of the front page to the style of headlines to the photos we use.
The Chattanooga Times Free Press’s new printing press operates Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014, in Chattanooga, Tenn.We can now have color on more pages than in the past, for instance, and there’s no sense having that capability and not using it. The press can print in much higher quality (once we finishing tweaking all the little tweaks to get the gremlins out of the system), so you’ll see more photos, bigger photos, better graphics.
“In a time period where some newspaper owners are reducing the number of pages of news and the number of days per week published, we affirm our commitment to being Chattanooga’s news source,” said Russell Lively, interim president of the Chattanooga Publishing Co. “As long as this community continues to buy a printed paper, we will continue to print one. Print is still the backbone of our news delivery system.”
But yes, as you patient (and some not-so-patient) readers know, there have been glitches in the past year. Delayed delivery. Black-and-white section fronts. Differently sized sections. Not being able to get in all the late sports scores. Print quality that was below our standards. Believe us, we know. We agonized each and every time it happened.
“We knew from the beginning that putting a new press in the same space as our old press while retaining the ability to print newspapers every day was going to be challenging,” Lively said.
As we have done many times in the past year, we apologize for those problems. And, again as we have often done, we thank all you readers who have stuck with us while we went through our growing pains. Your patience is appreciated more than you can know. And no one is happier that the press installation is finished than us.
Our job now – and always – has been to put out the best newspaper we can. And, while print is still our focus, we won’t ignore our digital product, either.
“We have new teams here who are charged with posting late-breaking news online that’s distributed through Facebook, email and on our website,” Lively said. “We have technical teams behind the scenes who format, deliver, monitor and support this delivery system.”
Our goal has always been to get you correct, timely news, whether it’s online or in print. That hasn’t changed with the new press and new design. In fact, we expect them to enhance what we already do.
The proof is in your hands.
