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Step-by-step guide to delivering each week’s news
By Lynn Hotaling
It may not take a village to put out a newspaper each week, but it does take every one of The Sylva Herald’s 20 regular employees as well as some part-time help.
As soon as one issue is finished, advertising and news staffers turn their attention to the next one, planning stories, designing ads and preparing copy submitted by members of the community.
That activity comes to a halt around 3 p.m. each Wednesday when that week’s paper arrives back in Sylva. “Paper’s back!” rings from the intercom, and everyone stops what they’re doing and heads for the press room, or “back shop,” as it’s known in Herald vernacular.
Editor Lynn Hotaling puts the last story in place on the March 23 front page. Each page of The Sylva Herald was once made up by hand with scissors and wax; however, by October 2004, the entire process was digital. Newspapers were printed at The Herald offices in Sylva from 1926 until 1974, when economics prompted the move from “hot type” to offset printing at The Mountain Press in Franklin. – Herald photo by Nick Breedlove
Everyone knows the drill and their part in it. Each staff member takes up their customary post. Some “stuff” (put the Community Life, or “C” section and its advertising supplements inside the A and B sections) and others “jog” (straighten and make neat stacks out of the scattered stuffed newspapers) and then count papers into piles of 25.
One person, usually Jeff Harlow, combines the stacks of one score and five until the right total for each of the stores on The Herald’s two local delivery routes is achieved. Each store’s allocation is labeled and carried out to one of two waiting vans. Once those orders are filled, Harlow yells, “Enough counted,” which means the day’s assembly job is about half over.
Pressman Harold Norman, who with 39 years on the job is The Sylva Herald’s most senior employee except Publisher Jim Gray, checks last week’s page proofs for errors. – Herald photo by Nick Breedlove
At that point, most of the “stuffers” and “joggers” take on a different role, recombining into teams of three to put labels on the 3,000 or so papers mailed to subscribers each week.
As the names go on, each group of papers is again “jogged” and stacked before being “strung” (bundled by means of a machine – the “stringer” to employees – that securely ties two strings around each pile of papers) and being placed into mail bags with others of the same zip code prior to delivery to the post office.
Advertising’s Sherry Peek checks lists of advertisements against finished pages to be sure all ads scheduled for the March 23 newspaper are accounted for. – Herald photo by Nick Breedlove
On good days – the ones when the paper gets back from Franklin on time and the stringer doesn’t malfunction – the entire operation takes about an hour and papers are “on the street” (in stores and newspaper boxes) by around 4 p.m.
Until about two years ago, putting the news and ads together to make each week’s edition was also a hands-on process that required lots of people. Copy (news stories) had to be trimmed and waxed before it was placed on the layout sheets with the advertisements. With the advent of more sophisticated computers and software, however, the keyboard and mouse have replaced scissors and wax in preparing each week’s edition.
Herald news and sports editors arrange copy around the spaces left for advertisements, and then print small versions of each page to be proofed. After corrections are made, the advertising department checks and places the ads. The finished pages then go to technology specialist Nick Breedlove to be prepared and transmitted electronically to the printing plant in Franklin.
Each week’s edition of The Sylva Herald is printed on a eight-unit (32 pages) offset web press at The Mountain Press in Franklin. Pages transmitted electronically to the pressroom are processed first as full-size negatives and then as printing plates, which are loaded onto the press. Once everything is adjusted, more than 7,200 copies of each section are printed, cut and folded in less than an hour. Newsprint from large rolls is fed through the press, where it is printed on both sides, cut and folded. – Herald photo by Kelly Timco
Upon arrival at pressroom computers, Herald pages are formatted first to page negatives, and then to printing plates. Once those plates are mounted on the eight-unit (32-page) offset web press and all the ink rollers are adjusted, all 7,200 copies of that week’s edition are printed and en route to Sylva and the loyal readers who await the newspaper’s arrival each Wednesday.
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After newspapers arrive back in Sylva on Wednesday afternoon, Herald staff members gather in the print shop (where The Herald was printed until 1974) to assemble the sections and prepare the papers for delivery. Advertising supplements have already been “stuffed” into the Community Life section, printed on Tuesday, and those sections are collated with the A and B sections, which are printed together on Wednesdays. Participating last week are (clockwise from front left) Janis Extine, Sandy Griffin, James Aust (back turned at “stringer”), Justin Goble and Cindy Turpin. After papers are assembled, they must be counted into groups of 25 and stacked for delivery to local stores. Counting and stacking (bottom photo) are Art Altman, front, and Michael Coggins. – Herald photos by Nick Breedlove
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