-The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., picked Westfalia Technologies Inc. to build an ASRS at its new production facility. Westfalia will build a one-aisle ASRS capable of storing both newsprint and FSIs, the vendor said. The ASRS will also include a custom-designed roll prep station and newsprint lay-down system. The ASRS will be able to store newsprint and FSIs either 4-deep or 5-deep in racks six levels high. The multiple-deep design will allow the paper to exploit a smaller building footprint, thus saving construction and operating costs, Westfalia said. The Free Lance-Star’s new production facility, to be anchored by a Goss International Corp. hybrid heatset/coldset FPS press, is expected to go into production in spring 2009.

 

-The Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel, the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader and the Des Moines (Iowa) Register plan to reduce their web widths to 44 inches as the trend to narrower webs gains steam. Crews from MAN Roland Inc.’s printservices unit are overseeing the reductions, with the first project at The News-Sentinel to begin in April. Scripps Treasure Coast, which publishes The Stuart (Fla.) News as well as several other dailies, will also move to the 44-inch size, MAN Roland said.

-Three years after Gannett Co. Inc. began printing USA Today in Hawaii, the publisher said it will no longer print the daily in the Aloha state. Instead, newspapers will be flown in from the West Coast for delivery at selected locations. Gannett began printing the newspaper at The Honolulu Advertiser in November 2004.

-Just a week after News Corp. completed its acquisition of Dow Jones, the publisher began to exploit its $5.6 billion purchase by using a Dow Jones plant in Sharon, Pa., to produce copies of the New York Post. The facility is printing 5,000 copies of the Post for distribution in western Pennsylvania, portions of Ohio and western New York.

-Digital Technology International said that Freedom Communications Inc. will add its NewsSpeed editorial software and WebSpeed Web publishing app to the MediaPlus Circulation apps already installed across the group. The agreement also includes options to license ClassSpeed advertising, DTI said.

The Newspapers Division of Freedom includes 33 paid dailies and 88 weeklies in 11 states, and complementary Web sites.

-Cannon Equipment said it sold postpress equipment to four newspapers: the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, the North County Times in Escondido, Calif., the Monroe (Mich.) Evening News and the Hartford (Conn.) Courant. The Times and North County Times tapped Cannon for equipment to modify label application conveyors while the Evening News purchased a Comet stacker. The Courant purchased stream aligners in conjunction with a web-width reduction project, Cannon said.

-MetaCarta Inc. said Reuters has become the first media company to use its new mapping software, NewsMap. The app lets users display a geographic map on their Web sites that illustrates where a particular story takes place.

-The Wall Street Journal said it selected Publishers Circulation Fulfillment Inc. to distribute an additional 75,000 daily copies to subscribers in Hartford, Conn., Boston, Washington D.C., and select New Jersey counties.

-The Sun-Times Media Group Inc. said it will trim costs by $50 million as it deals with falling revenues. Approximately $10 million of those savings will come from its previously announced distribution agreement with Tribune Co. and the consolidation of two suburban Chicago newspapers, STMG said.

One year ago

Yahoo Inc. teams up with eight publishers representing some 200 newspapers to share online classified ad revenues and boost the amount of newspaper-generated information on the search engine’s local sites.

Five years ago

The Daily Herald In Arlington Heights, Ill., completes its $50 million production facility, anchored by two RegioMAN 4-by-1 presses.

10 years ago

Howard Newspaper Group adopts a digital workflow through the purchase of Gerber Systems Corp.’s Crescent 3030T thermal platesetters.

15 years ago

The Toronto Star marks its 100th anniversary as it opens a $400 million, 675,000-square-foot Press Centre.