Stop the press: Gazette printing press closure impacts local publications

By Fritz Klug
News Editor

When Cheryl Bradford came back to Portage Central High School after winter break, there was a voicemail waiting for her that put the future of her student’s newspaper in jeopardy.

It was from the Kalamazoo Gazette. They were going to stop publishing the Central Stampede on Jan. 20 – the same day Bradford had scheduled the Stampede to be printed a month before.

Jo Wei Looi/Western Herald | The Kalamazoo Gazette printing press located in the newspaper’s main offices downtown at 401 South Burdick St.

“I had seen the trend [in the industry] but [the announcement] surprised me,” Bradford, who is the paper’s advisor, said.

On Jan. 8, Booth Newspapers announced that it would begin printing the Kalamazoo Gazette in Walker, Mich.

Instead of being written, designed, and printed in Kalamazoo, the paper is now only written in the city. All copy editing and page layout moved to Grand Rapids earlier in the year.

Once the physical printing moves north in April, the paper will have to be trucked 58 miles from the printing facilities in Walker, Mich., to Kalamazoo.

“We’re letting the news release speak for itself at this point,” Mary Oudsema, director of marketing and public relations, said.

All printing, production, and packaging positions at the Gazette have been “reduced;” some estimates put those numbers from 70 to 100 positions cut.

For Larry Ahleman, master faculty specialist in the imaging program at Western Michigan University, the Gazette’s announcement came as no surprise.

The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press reduced home delivery to three days a week in March. The Ann Arbor News closed in July and became AnnArbor.com – it publishes on Thursdays and Sundays.

Ahleman said that printing for the publishing industry has decreased over the past few years.

“I’m not so sure of the health of publishing printing,” Ahleman said.

Ahleman – who has worked in the printing industry for decades – said there are many reasons why the Gazette, like many other newspapers, is waning. One is the decline in advertising revenue.

Ahleman said that he remembers when department stores would buy full-page ads in the paper. Now, many larger advertisements are printed externally and shipped to the Gazette to be inserted in the paper.

Another reason Ahleman points to is that not as many people get their news from reading newspapers as they do from the Internet and television.

The future of the Regioman press at the Gazette may be different than what it has been used for.

“It isn’t going to be used for newspapers,” Ahleman said. “It will probably be sold for packaging.”

Because the press is so large, it would be less expensive for a company to move into the building than it would be to transport the press.

Ahleman said that when newspapers consolidate, strict time constraints are placed on everyone involved. “It forces people to get things done.”

The press not only printed daily copies of the Gazette, but also other commercial publications.

The Western Herald began printing with the Gazette in the fall of 2006, having previously been printed by the Battle Creek Enquirer.

Currently, the Herald is exploring future options of printing, Brian Abbott, the Herald’s general manager, said. It will continue to print with the Gazette until their four-year contract ends.

At the Stampede, Bradford said she cannot find a printer that is of the same quality as the Gazette that will print for the same price.

Bradford said she is trying to keep the students focused on publishing.

“It may be a blessing in disguise,” she said, “maybe now we’ll have to put the paper online.”

In downtown Kalamazoo, the Michigan News Agency has been selling the Gazette everyday for over 60 years.

“The value of the Kalamazoo Gazette is that it is local news,” owner Dean Hauck said. “It is my hope that it continues to be written in Kalamazoo.”

The announcement of layoffs affects not only the product that Hauck sells, but also the people who visit the store. A number of her customers were employees who have now lost their job.”

The News Agency sells a half dozen other papers, such as The New York Times, Detroit News, The Detroit Free Press, Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal, all of which are printed in places far away as Indiana.

Currently, Hauck gets a shipment of Gazettes around 7 or 8 a.m.; she said she doesn’t know how this will change when it is shipped from Walker.

The News Agency makes about six percent on newspaper sales, and sells magazines, books, candy and tobacco as other ways of generating revenue.

“My big concern is that fewer people are buying and reading newspapers,” Hauck said. “They help us think more seriously about our community.”

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=14362

Posted by heraldstaff on Feb 1 2010. Filed under Breaking, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

http://HeraldStaff