Production All-Stars, Press: Jim Falzone

By: If reporter Jim Falzone hadn't been assigned to cover a convention devoted to American Girl dolls, he might not have been in any position years later ? as operations executive ? to convince the 45,000-circulation Eagle- Tribune in North Andover, Mass., to be such an early adopter of the latest computer-to-plate technology that the serial number of its Agfa Advantage violet platesetter is 001.

He might not have centralized production of four dailies, saving Community News- paper Holdings Inc. $200,000 annually in labor costs alone. But for the American Girl assignment, he might not have built Eagle-Tribune Publishing Co.'s commercial printing operation from virtually nothing to a tidy $120,000 business.

Falzone's transition from newsroom to pressroom in a sense represents a full-circle journey. He began college as an electrical engineering and computer science major, but when a friend asked his help starting up a monthly music publication he caught the journalism bug. He switched his major to English, went on to write for alternative papers in upstate New York and Chicago, and was hired as feature writer for the Press & Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton, N.Y.

Then, after a string of, well, dopey story assignments, reporter Falzone was assigned to the American Doll convention in town. An editor's admonishment would prove to be the last straw. "I had to write about the American Doll convention ? and I couldn't be sarcastic about it," Falzone recalls.

He moved over to the ad-production side of the Binghamton paper just as it was making the transition from paste-up to full pagination. By the fall of 2000, four years out of school, he was production director of the Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal, another Gannett Co. Inc. paper in upstate New York, where he spearheaded the renovation of its packaging center, and oversaw a commercial printing operation with revenues of more than $1 million.

Falzone's tenure at The Eagle-Tribune (he arrived in 2003) coincided with nearly every industry trend, new and old. The daily finally went to morning publication, but it was ahead of the curve in its production consolidation of four dailies. The paper moved to 28-pound newsprint to cut consumption by 7%, but tripled safety training. Falzone designed an incentive package that encourages packaging center employees to show up for work.

The combination of journalism, ad-production, and operations experience makes Falzone invaluable to the Eagle-Tribune, says Publisher Al Getler. "He is always nominated to take the lead on projects that involve multiple departments because of his ability to adhere to deadlines, look at the big picture, and accomplish tasks," the publisher says.

And these days, what projects do not involve multiple departments? Take the Eagle -Tribune's foray into glossy magazines that are mailed to households in the upscale parts of its market. "The difference in going to glossy from newsprint is that there's got to be a strong focus on design," says Falzone. Without changing any of the graphic staffers, he coaxed new looks that are now reflected in the newspaper's ads as well. "It's never fun to tell an artist, 'that's not what will work,'" he says. And to educate advertisers and agencies, he produced an eight-page tab with concrete examples of design, digital graphics, and color combinations that work best in glossies.

Eagle-Tribune quality assurance teams are as much a permanent seminar as a watchdog, notes publisher Getler: "Graphic artists learn about offsetting created by belts in the packaging center. Press operators learn about variations of Portable Document Format settings. Editorial learns about impression cylinders and blanket wear in the press."

That only mirrors the collaboration that makes any production department successful, says Falzone, who is effusive in his praise of colleagues such as Pressroom Production Supervisor Sam Solomon.

"If there's anything I hope to get across with this [E&P All-Star award], it's that production cannot exist without a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of work," Falzone adds.

Career Highlights
B.A. English, Binghamton (N.Y.) University, 1996

Feature writer, Press & Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, N.Y., 1996; named operations manager by 2000

Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal production director, 2000; led packaging center renovation, reduced employee turnover 46%, passed $1 million in commercial printing revenue

Eagle-Tribune operations director, 2003, overseeing production consolidation, labor cost reduction, glossy magazine launches; created better-ads guide targeting high-end demos; worked to certify Konica violet plates