FYI they are selling the Flexo press at the Modesto Bee and will be printing on an old Goss Colorliner that some of our press men have worked on. They say it is a pile of junk and it has never run right. Perhaps that is what Sacto is doing right now is trying to get it up and running so they are testing it on the Sacto Bee, hence the worse than usual quality.
UPDATE 12:40: From comments:
It is a quality control issue. In the past, the Bee would have discarded these smuged papers, but with the costs of newsprint and the cut-costs orders from above, almost every newspaper printed gets put on the newstands or sent out to customers. They have driven newspaper scrap rates down to 2.5 percent of press runs, and want it even lower.
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Ink problems at The Sacramento Bee Part 5
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Sacramento Bee's new makeover comes out gray
The Sacramento Bee literally goes Pinko
5 comments:
The ink smudging problem is known as "ink set-off". Many factors are related to ink set-off issues. Most of those factors are related to process quality control, which The Bee as certainly cut.
Beyond the ugliness and mess for the reader, how would an advertiser react to their expensive ad space being defaced by a saturated editorial photo?
It is a quality control issue. In the past, the Bee would have discarded these smuged papers, but with the costs of newsprint and the cut-costs orders from above, almost every newspaper printed gets put on the newstands or sent out to customers. They have driven newspaper scrap rates down to 2.5 percent of press runs, and want it even lower. So just get used to smuges and mistakes. It's part of modern cost-cutting newspapering.
Good points, both anonymous commenters, thanks.
I don't see how they can get it down to 2.5% unless they let the papers go with pages cut off at the top and bottom and margins off on the sides during initial pull up. Flexo press in Modesto I was told gets 150 to 200 papers waste on pull up with a circulation of around 80,000? I don't see how you can do that with off set. The inking problem sounds like lack of experienced (union) pressmen. Fresno Bee has flexo also and it looks dirty too. Haven't seen it that much in Modesto. I also heard that due to the narrower width paper, the advertisers have to renegotiate their contracts due to the fact they aren't getting the column inches they were paying for. Is this true?
You keep calling it a ink problem it is not. This is the kind of stuff they run in sac. They do not give a shit they just wont to get it off and go home. I know I use to work there. And now they are going to run the Modesto Bee. Hope the readers in Modesto like it.
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