Newspapers in Kansas, Missouri upgrading presses

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A funny thing happened on the way to the prediction that the Internet would kill off the printed word. It didn't happen, and the millions of dollars some Kansas and Missouri newspapers are laying out for new presses are proof.

The Kansas City Star, the Southeast Missourian in Cape Girardeau and The Topeka Capital-Journal all have announced plans to upgrade their presses.

New presses at the Columbia Daily Tribune, the Springfield News-Leader and The Wichita Eagle began operating this year. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also invested millions of dollars in its facilities this year, though it did not add a new press.

"Newspapers are alive and thriving," said The Eagle's vice president for operations, Kevin Desmond, whose newspaper replaced a century-old press last year.

Indeed, newspapers nationwide have been spending piles of money on new equipment, according to the Newspaper Association of America. The Detroit Newspapers, the joint printing arm of the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, recently announced a $170 million expansion project at its production plant. The Chicago Sun-Times opened a $100 million press facility last year; the Omaha World-Herald opened a $125 million downtown printing plant, also last year.

Newspaper people were concerned about what the Internet would mean for the business a few years ago, said Clark Robinson, vice president of technology implementation for NAA. Since then, however, those fears have evaporated as the Internet bubble burst.

Meanwhile, newspapers have old equipment which must be replaced to meet the demands of advertisers who want more color of better quality than what's produced by the old letterpress machines, Robinson said. Newspapers will be making money from those ads in their printed newspapers while trying to figure out how to make their Web sites profitable.

"On the Internet side, it's more problematic because nobody has yet figured out a business model where you can make a whole lot of money off the Internet if you're a newspaper," he said.

Besides the great color that the newer presses produce, another benefit is their speed, which allows newsrooms to extend deadlines, said Tom Croteau, senior vice president of technology at the NAA.

The Southeast Missourian's plans, for example, call for a new $2.5 million press that will be much faster than the 19-year-old one and will have expanded color printing capability.

The Star's planned 60-foot-tall presses also are meant to improve the appearance of the paper and allow it to use color more frequently. Also, the paper will be two inches narrower -- a reduction that has become the industry standard and that Croteau said makes a paper easier to read and easier to handle.

It's all part of The Star's new $199 million production plant, which should be finished in early 2005.

"Our news content and advertising will be seen more frequently in color, and the newspaper as a whole will be much sharper," Arthur S. Brisbane, president and publisher of The Star, told employees when the plans were announced in July.

The Capital-Journal's $7 million upgrade includes a remanufactured press -- a used press that has been updated. It will replace a 1963 model, said David Meadows, the newspaper's general manager.

As a result, the newspaper's appearance should be improved, and more pages will be available for color, he said.

The Post-Dispatch invested $17 million to complete one of its production facilities, now named Pulitzer Publishing Center, in July. It involved consolidating the mailroom, newsprint storage and the majority of press operations under one roof.

'Incredibly kind' readers

Among those already using new presses, The Eagle and the Springfield News-Leader have both said their papers look better.

"Readers have been incredibly kind about improvements in the paper," said David Ledford, executive editor of the News-Leader. "Reproduction is extraordinary, and they've told us so."

The News-Leader's circulation director, David Brown, said single copy volumes were up since the new presses started running and customer turnover was down.

"I can't say that the new press is the only reason for the improvements, but it does appear to show a positive impact on our numbers."

Desmond said many readers of The Eagle responded positively to the changes from the paper's $27 million press and technology project. Those included a size reduction and more color.

"I think it's a lot easier to read," Desmond said, adding that while sales of daily papers were up this year over last year, it was difficult to tell if that was a result of the changes.

Other newspapers in the region, such as the Columbia Daily Tribune and the Lawrence Journal-World, have invested in equipment to accommodate national newspapers.

The Daily Tribune added its new $11 million press, which began operating in April, after The New York Times approached it about running national editions for the region, said print director Ron Cartledge. The press also has improved the look of the Tribune and its color quality, Cartledge said.

The Lawrence Journal-World expanded one of its two presses in 1999 to allow USA Today to print more pages and more processed color, said Ralph Gage, general manager of the Journal-World.