The production of print newspapers is moving – on the interstate – with ever earlier deadlines

As the quest for cost savings doubles, it becomes more of a rule than an exception that your home newspaper no longer prints in your hometown.

Exact circulation figures are not available, but around 22 million households still receive a daily and / or Sunday edition. For outsourced printing, often up to 150 to 180 miles away, this can mean much earlier deadlines. The evening city council meeting is reported like a sporting result on the west coast – 36 hours late – if at all.

Our friends at News & Tech, the printing magazine, have compiled a list of outsourcing deals, nine that weren’t announced until the first two and a half months of 2021 (see the list below), and a much longer list that spans the last one extends for 15 years.

This year’s shutdowns include extensive subway papers – Poynter’s Tampa Bay Times and the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky. As I reported last fall, McClatchy’s Kansas City star has abandoned the state-of-the-art facility it opened in 2006 and relocated printing to Gannett’s Des Moines Register 200 miles away.

The former print shop for The Kansas City Star on March 13, 2006 in Kansas City, Missouri (AP Photo / Ed Zurga)

John Hartman, a Kent State journalism professor who has published two books on USA Today, annotates biweekly to The Columbus Dispatch, a gannet paper now printed in Indianapolis, 175 miles away. The day after the New Year he wrote:

How sad. The printing deadline for the New York Times is now later than for the local newspaper Columbus Dispatch. If a sporting event or message does not take place by 4 p.m., it will not be sent the next day. The Times deadline ends in the early evening.

Meanwhile, the mailing runs more and more content from its sister newspaper USA Today. Everyone knows that USA Today often rewrites news published in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal and republishes it a day later. When the mailer publishes an article from USA Today, the news isn’t the usual two days old. It’s three days old.

(It is) proof that the shipping is trying to kill the habit of the daily newspaper in Columbus.

I wouldn’t go as far as Hartman if I said that Gannett and other outsourcers put dailies to sleep. However, when digital transformation comes first, timeliness of printing comes second. Mike Reed, CEO of Gannett, said so in presentations this year about the strategy for the largest newspaper company in the country with more than 250 titles.

Of course, those who want to be up to date have the option to go online or create e-replica editions that can be expanded for late sports history while still formatted like a once-a-day print product.

Here in Tampa Bay, the bi-weekly print edition of the Tampa Bay Times seems to be morphing into what I would call magazine-style content. If there is no impeachment order or similar on a Saturday, the print edition on Sunday contains detailed local stories.

Last Wednesday’s sports front highlighted the squad-related pieces for Lightning, Bucs, and Rays (we have two champions and a World Series club if you haven’t heard). A late Lightning game that ended around midnight against the Dallas Stars didn’t make it the next day and was instead picked up in the E-Edition. The weekend games didn’t end at 7 p.m. either

The economics of outsourcing is a little tricky. Those who work on the printing machines and bundle printed papers are laid off, resulting in permanent savings on payroll. Of course, the contract to print elsewhere devours some of the savings.

Just as attractive is the chance of selling a building or a large piece of arable land. The proceeds often amount to tens of millions. This money can fall on the bottom line or likely be used for tech infrastructure for digital purposes.

Press buildings may have been combined downtown with a main office such as Kansas City or off an expressway such as New Orleans, where a Times-Picayune property purchaser was planning a multi-deck driving range.

Outsourcing print is proving to be particularly attractive at Gannett, as its size has the advantage of playing the trend both ways. Gannett’s own expanded presence since the merger with GateHouse enables a new wave of consolidation within the group’s 250 stocks. It can also leverage additional capacity at branches in Indianapolis, Des Moines, and Lakeland, Florida to get paid for off-chain paper printing.

Gannett is not breaking any overall savings from print consolidation. However, Ashley Higgins, director of investor relations, told me that manufacturing and sales are $ 115 million over two years, for a total of $ 275 million in recurring “synergies.”

Properties are treated separately, but a single sale in the right place makes a lot of money. For example, the Naples, Florida printing and headquarters campus cost $ 28 million.

To get a sense of how widespread the outsourcing trend has become, here is News & Tech’s list for 2021:

• McClatchy’s (Raleigh) News & Observer and (Durham) Herald-Sun moved printing to a facility in Garner, a suburb of Raleigh.
• The Gannett-owned Jackson (Tennessee) Sun and (Memphis) Commercial Appeal moved to The (Jackson, Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger, also owned by Gannett.
• Hearst-owned San Antonio Express-News moved production to the Houston Chronicle, also owned by Hearst.
• Forum Communications moved printing of four Dakotas publications to its Detroit Lakes, Minnesota facility.
• The family-owned Telegraph Herald of Dubuque, Iowa, moved to a commercial printer in Platteville, Wisconsin.
• Gannett’s Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon is printed in Vancouver, Washington.
• Poynters Tampa Bay Times is now printed at Gannett’s Lakeland facility.
• Gannett will be moving the printing of his (Louisville) Courier journal to his Indianapolis and Evansville, Indiana, factories.
• Gannett’s four west coast newspapers – the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Bradenton Herald, (Fort Myers) News-Press, and Naples Daily News – will all move to the company’s Treasure Coast facility across the state.

News & Tech noted 19 such changes in 2019, most of them affecting gannett newspapers, and dozens more dating back to 2006.

What to do with the trend Tough times lead to the difficult decision to move to print outsourcing. An earlier crest came during the 2009-2011 recession.

For some observers, each conclusion corresponds to a tale of the death of the newspapers. It is certainly the end of an era for the craft of printers and other factory workers that is easily overlooked by reporters and editors doing their own work elsewhere.

The same goes for moving out of the headquarters’ offices – although the waste of space from the golden days of business is clearly an unaffordable inefficiency right now.

I would rather not compare newspapers to snakes, but instead of wringing my hands, I see the peeling of old skin, which no longer fits as a negative, but as an essential step into the primarily digital present and future.

(Thanks to Mary Van Meter, editor-in-chief and publisher of News & Tech, for compiling a list of outsourcing measures from the publication’s archives.)