In the press room, Tim Krebbs examines the Hutchinson News for print quality before making an adjustment to the press to properly align the ink colors.
Once the ink is rolled onto the paper, the newspaper is pulled down the triangular former board where the pages are combined and fed into the folder to be folded in half.
Jerry Hudson fills the black ink fountain by smoothing the ink over the trough on the printing press at The Hutchinson News.
Tim Krebbs loads rolls of paper onto the reel assembly in the basement below the printing press. The paper is fed from the rolls up through the floor of the printing press above where ink is rolled onto the pages.
David Green performs a quality check on a sample newspaper while the printing press churns out copies of The Hutchinson News.
Bill Taber adjusts the hopper on the SLS 1000A inserter machine in the mail room. The hopper holds stacks of inserts and drops one insert between the pages of each newspaper as the papers move through the assembly line.
Thomas Harris loads hoppers full of advertisements on the SLS 1000A inserter machine. This machine was revolutionary when it was installed in the mail room in 1995 because this computerized inserter machine knows when it makes a mistake. If an insert misses a paper, the machine knows which newspaper is missing which insert. The incomplete newspaper falls beneath the machine onto a conveyor belt which carries it back to the beginning of the assembly line. Then it goes back through the inserter, misses all the inserts it already has and receives only the missing one before joining its’ fellow papers to be bundled and shipped.
Completed newspapers fly down a conveyor toward a label printer. The papers stack up and the printer applies a label with a destination location. The Hutchinson News is then loaded into trucks, vans, or cars depending on the distance they will travel. Some are transported over 100 miles to be thrown onto doorsteps and front porches.
Founded in 1872, The Hutchinson News has always been printed in-house. However, The News didn't print in full color until the current press was installed in 1972. The press uses rollers to apply ink in four base colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black which combine to create all the colors you see on the pages today. Shown here, Bill Morris keeps an eye on the conveyor which carries finished newspapers up and out of the press room into the mail room to receive a series of inserts between their pages. Behind him, Tim Krebbs performs quality checks on the finished newspapers, Saturday, April 7, 2018.