It's not until we hit print that the real action begins. But then we realized . . . we didn't exactly know what that action was.
So we went to Dave Field, the Monitor's trusty camera mechanic. He's been here about 16 years and knows the ins and outs of this place like the back of his hand.
Dave scans photos and improves them so they publish well. He also works in the plate room, meaning he cooks up the plates that go to the press.
After someone in the newsroom hits the print button, the pages go to plate room. Except instead of printing onto paper, they're printed onto film – essentially the same kind of film you'd see in an old-school camera. If the page is in black and white, like this one, there's only one copy. But if it's in color, four copies print out. Then Dave puts the film up on a light table to make sure all the colors are lined up for the press.
Afterward, the film goes to a machine called an optical verifier, then to a light tower, which has UV lights and burns the data from the film onto the plates, which are basically big, thin pieces of steel covered in polymer.
From there, the plates go into a machine called a plate processor, which looks a lot like a pizza oven. First the plates are sprayed to wash off any black areas, then they're sent through an oven to harden. By the time it comes out, the plates pretty much look like a rubber stamp.
Once all that business is settled, the plates move on to the press room. That's where Harry Green is king.
Harry is the Monitor's production manager, and he oversees the details of the printing, press and pretty much everything that happens out back. Harry showed us the press, an intimidating sight to say the least. There are six presses in total, making up one mammoth piece of equipment responsible for printing hundreds of thousands of newspapers each week.
When we visited, we met press operators Brian Desjardins and Ron Pike. Brian has been with the Monitor for 16 years, while Ron's been here for 47 years. They're pretty much experts. The guys had just started a printing job for the New Boston Bulletin when we went back. First, they lined up the plates on the press, which are held on magnetically, filled them with the appropriate ink color and let 'em roll, stopping a few times to make sure the colors were right.
The press is a complex maze of paper and ink that we won't even attempt to unravel because, well, we'd probably get tangled and injure ourselves. But here are some cool facts we learned about it:
– A full roll of newsprint is 7 miles long and weighs about one ton.
– It takes about 52 miles to print an average full-run paper.
– The press is capable of producing 24,000 papers every 30 minutes.
– The Monitor uses flexographic ink, which is water based and, according to Harry, is “safe enough to drink.”
– The Monitor uses 40 percent recycled newsprint.
– The press was built in 1960 in Chicago and was transported and retrofitted here. It was bought here on 10 flat cars.
– The press weighs 300 tons and is set in 30 feet of concrete.
