The Gleaner in Henderson, Ky., may not have the biggest or fastest press, but a cogent blend of staff and printing technology have given the daily what it takes to produce a product that surpasses other newspapers in terms of color quality.

The Gleaner (Tuesday-Saturday, 10,452; Sunday, 11,837) beat out some 125 newspapers of all sizes to take the Best In Show honors in the 2003 Inland Press Print Quality Competition in February. The newspaper won the overall award following its first-place victory in the 10,000-20,000 circulation category.

This color entry won The Gleaner Best in SHow at the 2003 Inland Press Quality Competition. Photo: The Gleaner

“I really think the key to this is the commitment and determination of the people involved,” said Publisher Steve Austin. “Our equipment is not large, it’s very flexible and it’s good equipment, but it’s not large and it doesn’t compare favorably when you’re talking about 500,000-circulation newspapers.”

The winning entry was produced on an Atlas Quadra-Color from Web Press Corp. The Quadra-Color is a common impression unit with a footprint that is not much bigger than a standard one-color floor unit. The press has a web lead of only 5 feet.

Twinned line

The Gleaner prints its newspaper on a “twinned” pressline, with each line containing four Web Press Mark 25 perfecting units and a folder.

One of the newspaper’s presslines has two back-to-back Quadra-Color units, which allow for 4-over-4 color. The other line has a single Quadra-Color unit.

The single-wide Atlas Quadra-Color press from Web Press, on which The Gleaner prints its daily and a handful of commercial work, is configured as a “twinned” pressline.
Photo: Web Press

Austin gives all the praise to his staff.

“Our employees have a desire and a commitment to get it right,” he said. “I really think the sample we printed for the contest is reflected every day in our newspaper and it’s not a fluke thing. I think it’s a good reflection of what we do and what our goals are every day with the newspaper and the other commercial printing that we do.”

In addition to the daily, The Gleaner prints some 30 commercial jobs, including grocery circulars, TV booklets and weekly newspapers.

The Atlas Quadra-Color is the second Web Press unit The Gleaner has used. The newspaper’s previous Web Press unit was in use for 15 years.

The current press has been in use at The Gleaner for the last seven years and has provided the newspaper with necessary flexibility.

“We can run [the two presslines] independently or all together and it gives us a lot of flexibility, especially on our commercial work,” Austin said.

The winning entry

For the Inland contest, The Gleaner had to match proofs to digital photos supplied by Inland, as did all the other entrants.

“We normally just do an initial color correction,” said Production Manager Tim Hayden. “We read densities in Photoshop and our monitor is calibrated so we try to use a visual check as well and just do an initial scan and color correction on the photos and then do a quick press test and see where we’re at.”

The Gleaner’s advertising and editorial departments worked with production to set up some ads to run in the paper. After a few more corrections the entries, which The Gleaner treated as house ads, were run in one of the newspaper’s sections.

“I think in addition to the initial press tests we ran it two different times before we got copy we were really happy with,” Hayden said.

The Gleaner’s black-and-white entry took second 
place in the 2003 Inland Press Print Quality Competition.
Photo: The Gleaner

The Gleaner sent two tearsheets to Inland — one of the color entry and one of the black-and-white entry, for which the newspaper took second place.

Talented staff

Like Austin, Hayden gives the credit to the staff at The Gleaner.

“I think when you have a combination of really strong and talented prepress people along with talented pressroom people and you work to quantify and track and record your quality efforts on a daily basis, it helps get consistency in the paper and that’s what our goal is,” he said.

Hayden said two production employees in particular were instrumental in The Gleaner’s success: Rick Lancaster, night production supervisor and Donald Malden, pressroom foreman.

“These two really embrace quality controls and work to instruct and encourage the other employees on a daily basis,” he said.

Hayden said in some ways, he thinks the small size of the paper plays a role in the quality because it facilitates closer involvement.

“It’s easier for me as the director of operations to be a little more hands-on than it would be at a larger paper, but then again, a larger paper would have more managers involved.”

Austin and Hayden are both proud of the job they are doing with their press.

“That’s one thing I was really proud of is we just run a little single-width press and it’s got a lot of manual ink keys on it, there’s no computerized color correcting. The guys wear their ink home with them,” Hayden said.

The 2003 Inland contest isn’t the first time The Gleaner has been recognized by the association. The newspaper took second place in both the color and black-and-white categories last year.

“It’s a subjective contest and it’s always difficult to know how you’re going to do before you get the results,” Hayden said. “What we talked about with my department heads and with my foreman was, regardless of what the outcome was going to be, I knew that we submitted a good product and as long as we know that we worked hard and did the best we could I was proud of them. To have the award for Best In Show in the color (category) is really just a credit to them and their efforts.”