Gannett’s move to buy a 17-year-old Berliner press from Switzerland as a replacement for a 47-year-old press at The Times in Shreveport, La., says a lot about the newspaper industry as 2008 begins.

“Economics play into this,” said Times publisher Peter Zanmiller, acknowledging that the decision to go used rather than factory-new reflects the current economic reality. Still, he said, the $15 million the corporation is investing in The Times will pay for both the press and the building necessary to house the machine. If Gannett had opted for brand-new, The Times might have gotten a press, but it might have had to sit on pallets in the middle of Marshall Street in downtown Shreveport.


Chuck Moozakis, Editor-In-Chief
Newspapers & Technology Magazine
 

It’s been known for months, of course, that Gannett was going to go retro in Shreveport. It’s not the first time the publisher has opted to take something old and make it new again — it took the same step at The News-Star in Monroe, La., when it commissioned an entirely rebuilt 19-unit Urbanite press.

 

But it is the first time Gannett found it less costly to find a European press, retrofit it to accommodate U.S. power demands, trim the web from 50 inches to 44 inches and ship it to Shreveport than it would have been to find a reconditioned press in the States.

Part of the credit (or blame, depending upon where you sit) for that goes to Graphic Web Systems, a Netherlands-based company that specializes in reconditioning and reselling European newspaper presses. The inventory of full-color European newspaper presses is ripe, says Willem Kok, a former Dutch newspaper executive who purchased the reseller in 2006. “There are a lot of reduced cutoff, full-color presses in Europe that still have many years of useful life,” he said. “Why shouldn’t American newspapers consider them?”

The Times will literally go back in time with its WIFAG OF 790 shafted press. Ironically, it was WIFAG that in 1996 sold the first shaftless press to a North American newspaper when the Tulsa (Okla.) World agreed to buy two OF 370 presses. The cost of each press in 1996? About $17 million, proving Gannett’s logic to be correct this time around.

Kok says he has plenty of other presses ready for American press halls. We’ll have to see whether Gannett’s move is an anomaly or part of a long-term trend.

On a totally unrelated note, 2008 also brings with it an important anniversary for the publication you’re now reading. It was 20 years ago, in 1988, that Newspapers & Technology was founded.

Our mission, now as then, is to provide authoritative coverage of the technologies and services fueling the newspaper industry’s development, whether it’s the advent of desktop computers (then) or chemistry-free digital plates (now).

Another constant: your support, for which we remain grateful.