One Moment, Please… More color and page count splits newspaper

By Jason Sethre

Publisher

Fillmore County Journal

jason@fillmorecountyjournal.com

Our readers have probably noticed some recent changes in the makeup of the newspaper.  Two, three or even four sections, more often.  And, the relocation of content such as sports and classifieds.

For about a month now, we’ve had to adapt to production challenges relating to color and page count capacity of our printing partner, the House of Print, in Madelia, Minn.  They’ve done a fantastic job for us since we started working with them in April of 2011. 

Over the past year, the Fillmore County Journal page count has grown along with a more frequent demand for full color from advertisers who recognize that the vibrancy and crispness of our print quality will make their ads stand out.  This growth has pushed the production capabilities of our printer.  They are definitely up for the challenge, but this has meant that we have been required to adapt to their production capacity.

Our deadline has always been 5 p.m. on Tuesdays for the following Monday publication date.  We have gone to press on Thursdays for more than a decade.  The only exception to the rule revolves around the six major holidays: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas.

In order to provide the color capacity in our newspaper that our readers and advertisers have grown to appreciate and expect, we now have to split the newspaper into two, three or four sections more often than not.  Especially throughout the school year when we are providing coverage for so many activities for area students.

This has meant that our team at the newspaper has been working ahead of schedule to adhere to the press deadline set by our printing partner.  And, when aiming to hit deadlines every week, it is one of those things where if we miss our press deadline, there is an entire press crew standing around waiting for our pages in order to go to press.  And, then they have another newspaper coming in right after ours, so it becomes a snowball effect.

The time between our ad deadline and going to press can be compared to hooking up a fire hose to a garden hose.  There’s a huge swell of content that comes together in that short amount of time.  We are always working against the clock with the deadline fast approaching.

As we strive to stay in the good graces of our printing partner, we want to make sure our customers know that our deadline is still 5 p.m. on Tuesdays.  With that said, we will have certain sections going to press much earlier, so that means anything coming in late will not make it into those sections.  We just don’t want for any of our readers or advertisers to miss the deadline and not get something in the newspaper.

We appreciate the participation of our entire community in the process of publishing this newspaper each and every week.  Thank you for being a part of the Fillmore County Journal team!