With the advent of the Internet, printing companies that once had to literally “cut and paste” newspapers together are now receiving files sent across the country within seconds — allowing them to process, print and distribute a newspaper within just a few hours time.
Rick Donahey, production manager of Signature Offset, a commercial cold-web printing company that prints The Daily Lobo newspaper amongst others, said there has been so much change in printing technologies over the last 15 years that he continues to learn more about the process every day.
Donahey, who has been working in the printing business for more than 32 years, said the Albuquerque location of Signature Offset has been printing The Daily Lobo for nearly 20 years.
The printing process begins every evening when The Daily Lobo uploads files to Central Imaging’s website — an imaging department located in Boulder, Colo. After uploading images onto the website, The Daily Lobo creates an estimated “job ticket” (EST), or a specification sheet. Each EST processed every evening contains every specification for the next day’s newspaper, from the size of the paper to the quantity to where color is located on each page.
The Daily Lobo has a deadline of 2 a.m. to issue each EST.
After the specification sheet has been received, the files are formatted and transferred onto an “imaging plate file,” the file used to physically print the paper. Donahey said newspapers used to use film and chemicals to produce the paper, but the paper is now produced entirely electronically.
These imaging plate files are then sent to the Signature Offset in Albuquerque to be transferred onto aluminum litho printing plates. These printing plates are then loaded into “Four Highs” — printing presses containing four oil-based ink dispensers (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) that distribute ink accordingly across the page.
After being printed, each roll of paper travels through the “tower” and “former board,” where the paper is folded and cut. After each newspaper is completed, they are stacked and bundled in groups of 100.
Signature Offset usually prints 9,000 copies of The Daily Lobo every weekday.
After being bundled up, Trucking Supervisor Denise Kee picks up all the bundles and transports them to The Daily Lobo building on campus between 6 and 6:30 a.m. Once received, employees of The Daily Lobo distribute the newspaper to more than 150 dispensaries on and off campus.
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