What is the Role of Printing Department of a Newspaper?

Machines and Processes:

As the Form or Page of type leaves the composing room it is flat, but on the way to the printing press it must be converted into a semi-cylindrical mould to be fitted on the rotary printing machine.

The first stage, therefore, is the moulding, which is carried out by placing the ‘flong’-a previously prepared sheet of dampened paper mache-together with felt blankets on the page of type.

Hydraulic pressure of from 130 tons to 200 tons according to the amount of matter on the page is applied and simultaneously heat is also applied to dry the mould for the next process of casting. During this period the pressure is reduced to about thirty tons. Having been removed from the hydraulic press, the mould is ‘packed’ to ensure that the large blank areas where there is no type are supported against the weight of metal during the casting.

This packing consists of thick felt paper and is pasted on the back of the mould wherever it is judged that reinforcement is needed. This is specially the case with display advertisements. The mould, having been carefully examined and passed, is sent by a special mould lift to the casting room where it is trimmed in size to fit the casting box. Having been dried and curved to shape, it is placed in the auto-plate casting machine.

This consists of two major parts-one a large crucible containing tons of molten metal which is an alloy of lead, antimony, and tin, and the other a curved casting box with a cylinder. The mould is set in the casting box, face onwards, and is held by clips. A pump forces seventy pounds of molten metal into the casting box and this completely tills all the recesses made in the mould by the type under hydraulic pressure.

Water passing through the casting box and cylinder solidifies the metal in twenty-five seconds. The casting box is then opened to withdraw the mould; the cylinder is rotated half a circle and an exact replica of the original page, but now in semi- cylindrical form, is obtained. It is slightly over half an inch thick and it has levelled sides to fit the locking device on the rotary press. Further plates are cast according to the number of printing presses that are running.

Auto-Plate Shaver :

The plates are next carried to the auto-plate shaver. A set of fingers on travelling racks convey the plate to an arch where it is lifted into position and bored to the correct thickness of half an inch. A second set of fingers moves the plate on to a cooling saddle where water is sprayed on to the inside and the plate again moves forward for brushes to remove any loose shavings. All this having been completed, the plates are ready to be locked into position on the cylinders of the printing presses. In the meantime the original page o^f type, when it has cooled down, is returned to the case-room for any alterations that have to be made for later editions of the paper.

To the casual visitor to a newspaper office, the mighty printing presses offer perhaps the biggest attraction of all, and to a journalist there are few more thrilling slights than the locking of the final plates into position as a sign that the day’s issue will come to life within the next few moments. Then one sees the slow careful starting up of the machines, with the speed gradually increasing until the maximum required producing the necessary number of papers is reached.

The number of printing presses obviously varies according to the circu­lation but some idea may be gained from the particulars of the presses of The Times, London, for example, with its circulation of about a quarter of a million and of the News of the World, London and Manchester, with its gigantic circulation of over eight million. In the press room of The Times there are two lines of twelve-unit rotary printing presses and one line of six units making a total of thirty units with nine deliveries carefully disposed between them to give a complete range of production up to a possible maximum of a forty-eight page paper. Each unit of the presses prints two sections of eight pages, each in one revolution of the cylinders.

The presses have to be adapted daily according to the size of the paper fixed by the Editor and the Manager. The News of the World which is printed simultaneously in London and Manchester and between the hours of seven ‘o’ clock on Saturday night and half past four o’clock on Sunday morning, 6.1/2 million copies are delivered from the London presses and more than 2 million copies from the Manchester presses-probably the greatest achievement in the matter of quick production in the whole history of printing.

In London the miracle is accomplished by twenty-eight sextuple presses capable of producing twenty-four page papers. Eleven of these presses run at a speed of 50,000 copies an hour and the remaining rather older machines at 26,000 to 28,000 copies hourly. While some preparation is made during the week in the composition of the paper, such as advertisement and special features, the main body of the paper is set almost wholly on Saturdays. Twenty-two compositors are engaged upon the make-up and fifteen lino-type operators do the bulk of the composition. There are thirty-three lino-type machines which would be necessary if it were possible to print pre-war sized newspapers.

The Stereo Plates :

When the stereo plates arrive in the machine room they are locked in position on the cylinders of those presses which are to be used for the night’s run. Some of the presses will always be held in reserve either for overhauling or to be used in case of an emergency. The movable lipped blocks hold the plates fit over the levelled sides. When the machine is running the ‘web’ of newsprint passes between the plate cylinder, which is inked by mechanically propelled rollers, and the ‘impression’, which is of exactly the same size as the plate cylinder and is covered with a rubberized ‘blanket’. While it is passing through the machine, the web receives successive printings from each stereo plate. The proper supply of ink is obviously one of the most important points.

It is piped from a central reservoir to pumps, one of which supplies each side of the unit. They are designed so ingeniously that each column width of the paper has its own small pump. While the press is running, the supply is controlled by a thumbscrew which will release just enough ink. The ink is fed into the ‘distribution’ where the action of rubber rollers, running against steel drums and at the same time moving to and fro, reduces the ink to the necessary consistency for printing. Rollers known as ‘inkers'” roll the ink on to the plate.

After the web has been fed outwards through one half of the unit to print one side, it turns in and passes through to the other half of the unit for printing the reverse side of the paper. The printed web next passes the superstructure for the run over ‘adjustment rollers’ which ensure that each page is in register with the rest.

Folding of the Paper :

Nothing fascinates the visitor to the machine room more than the transformation of the web of printed paper into the neatly folded newspaper which he will see on his breakfast table next morning. The webs are led to the folder, where a ‘former’ or ‘kite’ makes the fold in the back of the copy. The webs are brought together at the top of the ‘former’, which is an inverted triangle of steel with a shaped nose.

These are drawn down it by rollers which force the edges together and make^ the first fold. Then comes the folding cylinder, where needles engage and draw the complete printed product round it until it has completed half a circle. At this point a complete copy of the paper is wrapped half round the folding cylinder, but so far it has not been severed from the web. A knife, revolving in a cylinder on the other side of the web is brought into action.

It comes against a buffer in the folding cylinder and cuts off the copy of the paper. The needles which have drawn the copy round the cylinder are then withdrawn in order that the paper may be released. Next a blade set in the folding cylinder emerges, tucks the centre of the copy down between two nipping rollers, and folds it in half. A second set of needles engages the web above the cutting knife and draws the next copy in its turn round the folding cylinder.

The copy which has been freed is shot down by nipping rollers which press the second fold and propel the spokes of a Catherine-wheel and, revolving away from the copy, first receive it and then lay it down, a little behind the previous press. As every quire is passed, a kick mechanism pushes forward the twenty-seventh copy so that the output is counted as it is delivered. It is almost inconceivable to the lay mind that the paper can be pulled from the reel, printed, collected together, folded, counted, and delivered by the action of a single machine.

And so the morning newspaper is being printed and the final task remains of getting it to the breakfast table of the numerous readers.

Machine Room :

Now that the Machines are running and papers are being delivered in a regular flow there is time to examine the machine room in a little more detail. The presses are mounted on heavy cast-iron structures which support three-arm reel-stands from which the paper is fed continuously to the presses.

The continuous supply of paper passes up from the under-structure into the centre of each printing unit and, as it is essential that the paper is fed to the presses with absolute consistency, strict control of its tension is vital. The nightmare of the machine room must always be the possibility of a ‘paper break’. If the newsprint tears while the machine is running at top speed the results may be disastrous.

At the best there must be delay while the torn paper is removed and a fresh start is made. At the worst there may be serious mechanical damage as the torn paper, now completely out of control, winds itself around the inner working of the machine like an angry hissing snake. For that reason the running of the machine must be watched for every second. Directly a tear is noted the signal is given to slow down and then to stop the machine.

The frightening part of the business, of course, is that it is not possible to guard against a break. It comes without warning and for no obvious reason. If the luck of the machine room is in, it may not happen at all for several nights, but on the other hand, there may be three or four breaks in a single night’s run which disables the over­seers and all concerned with getting the paper out on time to a state of mental and physical exhaustion. There is an independent supply of paper to each press, so that a break affects only one machine and not all of them.

But in a newspaper office at this time of night every second is of vital importance. A certain number of papers must be at each railway terminus at a fixed time, and if the printing of even a few thousand copies is held up, calculations are upset and fresh adjustments have to be made. The firm which can invent a roll of newsprint which is guaranteed never to tear during the run will make a fortune for its shareholders.

Electrical Counting of Copies:

An idea of the gigantic size of the modern printing press can be gained from some facts which were published in 1954 when a new line of printing presses was installed in the offices of the Manchester Guardian and the Manchester Evening News. The new line of double- width presses delivers at six folder points, can provide six sixteen- page papers or three thirty-two page papers, and has a running speed of up to 50,000 copies an hour To make way for the new machines old presses have to be cleared out.

The journey from the machine room to the publishing depart­ment now begins. As the papers pass on elevators to the men who are waiting to dispatch them they are counted electrically and they are then carried by conveyor to the packers waiting at their steel benches. Beforehand the section has received from the circulation department complete information as to the number of papers required.

The circulation of a newspaper varies every week or month according to the estimate made by both the wholesalers and the news agents as to their likely requirements. In normal circumstances, the fluctuations will probably be slight, but on days when a great national happening has to be recorded the circulation will leap up. On the mornings of the Elections to Parliament for instance, thousands of extra copies of the newspapers, both national and local, are printed, for there are always readers who are eager to know the election trends even before final declaration of results.

Dispatching:

As a normal rule there are three methods of preparing the papers into parcels ready for distribution. Firstly the postal subscribers must be dealt with, Wrappers for their copies have been addressed and franked during the daytime and sorted in the early evening by clerks from the General Post Office. Packers fold the copies singly into wrappers and place them in order to catch the mail trains.

Supplies intended for the city wholesalers are sent out in bulk, the bundles being loaded into vans sent by the agents from their depots where, together with the supplies of all the other national news­papers, they are packed and distributed. For the agents of whole­salers and the retailers in the districts the parcels are made up in prepared wrappers which are labelled and contain instructions about the number to be packed. Once packed, the parcel is placed in a conveyor belt, if one is there, which passes between the benches where the packing is in progress.

This takes it to a checking bench from which it is loaded into a van, and immediately the complete consignment for a particular train has been loaded, the van departs for its own particular railway terminus, where the parcels are trans­ferred .to the train at a speed and with a skill which always amazes the onlooker. As a rule there are only seconds to spare between the completions of the loading and the time set for the train’s departure.

The loss of a minute of two on the road between the newspaper office and the railways station may be a very serious matter, for the missing of a train, with all the consequent confusion end the dislocation at the end of the journey, where the agent, also working to a very close time-table, is waiting for the arrival of his newspapers. But the representatives of the publisher are generally on very good terms with the railway authorities and, if the guard finds that for reasons of his own it is occasionally necessary to delay the train’s departure for a minute or two which can be made up during the journey, nobody worries particularly although, of course, late arrival at the terminus must not be allowed to develop into a habit.