Advance Consolidates Michigan Printing, Ad Production

By: E&P Staff Newhouse family-owned Advance Publications is consolidating the printing and ad production of three of its Michigan dailies.

In a note to readers Friday, The Muskegon Chronicle Publisher and Editor Paul Keep said that starting later this year, the Chronicle will be printed at the Walker, Mich., production plant where The Grand Rapids Press is produced.

The Chronicle's packaging and mail room operations will move to the Walker plant, while advertising production, prepress, and digital imaging operations will be consolidated at the Press in downtown Grand Rapids.

Ads for the sibling Kalamazoo Gazette will be also moved to the new regional ad production center at the Press.

Advance said slumping advertising revenue is the reason the Chronicle will be published outside Muskegon for the first time in its 151-year history. The newspaper installed a new press at its downtown facility in 2002.

The Chronicle's keep said the consolidations will affect 25 full-time employees and 50 part-time employees at the newspaper.

Advance has a no-layoff policy for full-time employees. Keep said the full-time Chronicle employees will have the choice of applying for jobs in the regional production center or accepting a voluntary buyout offer. Full-time employees who can't be accommodated at the regional center will be offered a job somewhere among the company's eight Michigan papers.

Part-time employees can apply for jobs at the Walker plant or at Grand Rapids. Those who don't get jobs will be paid a severance package, Keep said.

"The Chronicle will remain a local, Muskegon-based newspaper even though it will be printed elsewhere," Keep said in the note to readers. "Our core functions -- local news gathering, advertising sales, delivery of the newspaper -- all will remain in Muskegon. And the paper won't look much different than it does today."

The Chronicle's six-year-old Goss offset press "will be idled and its future is uncertain," Keep said.