Above & beyond

I worked with four newspapers before my friends and I bought this one. I have also worked with a lot of presses. A LOT of presses. None were as good as the one The Reporter uses.

Our friends at the Pharos Tribune in Logansport are golden.

No, dear readers, this newspaper does not own a press. Most newspapers don’t. Even a certain formerly iconic paper one county south is now printed in Illinois.

If you only read The Reporter online or only in print you may not know this, but there are exactly two differences between Monday’s print and digital editions. Both only affect Page A1.

One: in the digital edition we add a very light grey screen to make it look more like newsprint. In the print edition there is no grey screen because – and this is true – it is newsprint.

Two: in the lower left corner of the digital edition there is a box with info on how to subscribe, and the logo of our news gathering partner, WISH-TV Channel 8. In the print version, that space is blank because that is where the address goes for subscribers who take delivery via the U.S. Postal “Service” (USPS).

“OK, publisher-boy, what does that have to do with Logansport press?”

Sunday, April 27, we accidentally sent the digital front page to Logansport. What rolled off the press was exactly what we sent them: grey-screened with a box full of data where the address should go.

There are two groups of people with two very different skill sets at the Logansport facility. Let’s call them the Press and the Mailroom.

The Press runs the machine that turns ink and tree bark into printed pages. It is a big complicated thing that is fun to watch churn out 100 newspapers per minute.

The Mailroom runs the machine that inserts the extra sections of the newspaper into the A section, prints delivery addresses, then bundles up postal and rack editions. That, too, is a fun machine to watch.

All the pages were printed by the time the Mailroom noticed we had given them nowhere to put addresses.

The Press immediately said, “We can run another set if you send us a new Page A1.”

I did not want to do that because it is horribly wasteful. I do not like wasting tens of thousands of pages. Trees were cut down in Canada to make paper and blank graphic plates were shipped from Asia.

The Mailroom said, “We can print address labels and put them on by hand. It will take a while and we need to make some phone calls to figure that out, but we can do it.”

I didn’t want to do that because it is a ridiculous thing to ask when the mistake was ours.

I’ve seen that process. It is not pleasant. Every single copy gets an address label affixed by hand. Then everything gets hand-sorted into postal bins and retail stacks. It is slow, tedious, manual work that numbs the brain.

“It will take a while, but we’ve got this,” the Mailroom said. “It won’t cost you anything extra and it won’t waste paper.”

OK, I told them, but you have to let me compensate you for the extra work. This is above and beyond. It saves money and material and doesn’t make the Press redo the job they just finished.

“You don’t need to do that,” the Mailroom said. “We can fix this. This isn’t the worst mistake we’ve ever had to deal with. Just give us time.”

What I actually did was run off to a local pizza place to get them several pizzas with breadsticks to enjoy after the label-fest they were about to engage in.

When I got back with a stack of pies, they were labeling away, I asked for labels and stacks of papers to pitch in and help get done faster. A couple guys from the Press came over to pitch in too.

Again, they have very different skill sets.

The Press asked the Mailroom for directions, and away we all went, labelling and sorting and bundling things up.

Not one person complained.

Granted, they probably don’t often get to tell a publisher how to label and stack newspapers, so that may have helped lighten the mood.

Also, there was pizza.

Still, not a single complaint about fixing someone else’s mistake.

I look around the modern world and see division, anger, social engineering, people actively looking for things to be offended about, a lack of work ethic, and dysfunctional institutions that used to operate well (I’m looking at you, USPS). I see that and tell people, “This is not the America I grew up in.”

For one glorious Sunday night, a bunch of people pitched in to help fix a mistake and make sure our subscribers got their hometown newspaper delivered on time.

No one said, “That’s not MY job.” The only response was, “Here are your options. Pick one and let us know how we can help.”

Now THAT is the America I grew up in.

To our friends at the Pharos Tribune in Logansport: you run the best press I have ever worked with.

Your people are solid gold.

Stu Clampitt loves both wisdom and efficiency. After nearly 30 years of chasing wisdom, he has not caught much, which means he is neither wise nor efficient. You can reach him by email at News@ReadTheReporter.com.