Frank Stops the Presses

Frank bemoans the “electronic-ification” of American newspapers and traces the evolution that went from hot-metal type, to flongs, to curved plate cylinders for high-speed rotary presses, to offset printing with negative film and aluminum plates, and to CTP (computer-to-plate). He predicts that circulation drops will move some newspapers to rollfed inkjet and the only thing that might be displayed might be a PDF file.

Published on October 7, 2022

Discussion

By Gordon Pritchard on Oct 07, 2022

Not only is the printed newspaper in jeopardy but so is history. News in digital form tends to disappear in very short order - it lacks permanence.

By James Kohler on Oct 07, 2022

As a young RIT "Printing Student" in the early 60's I still remember getting a tour of the Democrat & Chronicle (flagship of the Gannett fleet they said) where I saw at least 7 or 9 Linotype machines cranking away 24/7. Then cylinder making and finally the old HOE web letterpress unit. Paper arrived underground via the old subway station! es, Rochester years and years ago had a subway system. I still remember my father taking me on it when I was really young. The D&C did finally update years ago to a MAN German (I believe). How far newspapers have come and Frank is right - does the print version finally go away. I hope not as I still love my Sunday NY Times!!

By Richard Wright on Oct 11, 2022

To keep the museum display period correct, you could velcro an IPad to the wall and have to explain that the battery life for paper is far longer than devices like iPad.

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