Michigan Daily Upgrades Color

By: Jim Rosenberg The Greenville(Mich.) Daily News replaced a 22-year-old Goss Community color unit with a new Community four-high.
Installation began last Wednesday and "it was running Sunday night," Production Manager Jeff Morris told E&P.

Running three four-highs and four black-only units, the paper is part of Stafford Communications Group, which also owns four weeklies, two radio stations and a commercial printing business.

It reported that its publisher, Stafford Communications President Robert Stafford, said the upgrade will improve color quality in the paper and in publications printed by the company's commercial printing business, NewsWeb Printing Services.

For the 9,000-circulation Daily News and the commercial work, the pressroom runs up to three shifts, according to Morris, who says many of the commercial jobs are tabloids for local customers.

Morris told his paper that the color unit's replacement was "just one of the many things we'll be doing this year" to upgrade production equipment.

Among those upgrades, the company plans to put in a computer-to-plate unit. "We're leaning toward thermal," Morris said of the type of platesetter exposure. He added that the operation also may have automated registration installed on the press "some time this year." No vendor has been selected yet.