Left: The presses will continue to roll in western Minnesota at the Ortonville Independent. Photo credit: Ortonville Independent Facebook page. Right: Help wanted ad in Minnesota Star Tribune.
Some years ago, on business travel in western Minnesota, my newspaper instincts led me into the office of the local weekly newspaper, the Ortonville Independent. I recall walking through the door and sniffing the air. “Ahhh, press gas,” I muttered. It seemed to register in a knowing smile from someone in the front office.
Having spent many hours in a newsroom and adjacent press room, my olfactory receptors picked up the odor – aroma? – of the pungent solvent used to clean web printing presses. As with printing ink, a lot less of that is in use today as newspapers still in business have much smaller press runs or no longer print in house.
Except in Ortonville, MN, population 1,924, on Big Stone Lake and the headwaters of the Minnesota River. The press at the Independent keeps busy printing about 2,400 copies for subscribers of its two newspapers, the Independent and the Northern Star, and about a half dozen other weekly newspapers in western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota, along with a sign business.
It’s a different story about 180 miles to the east. On a tour of the Minnesota Star Tribune’s vast, state-of-the-art printing plant last March in the North Loop of Minneapolis, I felt awe seeing the towers of newsprint rolls in the warehouse, and the long line of press units. It felt permanent and immovable.
Press rolling into history
Last month I was shocked and dismayed seeing a story on Sept. 9 headlined, “Minnesota Star Tribune to sell Minneapolis printing plant, lay off 125 workers. The state’s largest media company will continue printing seven days a week but will outsource printing to Iowa.” The plant will be shutting down at the end of the year.
Also, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution will stop providing a print edition at year’s end and go completely digital. And several years ago, the small daily where I worked as managing editor for about 15 years stopped the presses and sold them for scrap. With digital editions daily, it now prints on paper just two days a week about 150 miles away in Sioux Falls, SD.
Back in Ortonville, I’m told that the press operator at the Independent has been on the job for about 40 years and looking to slow down. This helps to explain a large display ad in a recent Sunday edition of the Star Tribune. Engulfed by the irony, I did a double take seeing: “Hiring: Press Operator, experience on web press preferred, competitive salary. If interested call the Ortonville Independent. Located in Ortonville, MN.”
Big city connections
The ad was very intentional, said fifth generation publisher of the Independent, Clarissa Blake. She was speaking by phone en route to Minneapolis to meet with press operator candidates. And they will listen because they know two of Blake’s uncles who previously worked at the Star Tribune plant.
That connection may be enough, along with the good walleye fishing in Big Stone Lake at Ortonville, to persuade press operators to leave the big city for a small town out on the western prairie. And along with walleye and great pheasant hunting, they could find a nice house at a fraction of the big city price.
In a variation of Samuel Johnson’s (English writer, d.1784) quip about writers as ‘ink-stained wretches’, I will call press operators ‘ink-stained heroes’. I gained this respect watching them scramble around the row of towering press units as they began to roll. Adjusting tension, twisting dials and monitoring ink flows, all with a heavy dose of adrenaline. They wore black clothing to camouflage the ink stains.
Roll the presses
At start up the webs of newsprint fed slowly through the press units as the operators made adjustments. The noise became raucous as the printing speed increased. They grabbed the first copies emerging from the folder and flipped through the pages. With everything looking good the speed increased more and soon the copies flowed along the conveyor and into the mail room.
This will have to remain a pleasant memory, unless I pay a visit to the Ortonville Independent, or other of the few printing plants that remain in the area. One thing that I don’t miss is having to be in a pressroom at midnight or after for a daily morning newspaper. Night news editors scurried to make the deadline under the glare of waiting press operators. As one said to me, “when your job ends, my job begins.”
I subscribe to the digital versions of three newspapers, the West Central Tribune, the Minnesota Star Tribune, and the New York Times. I still miss reading newspapers on newsprint, or magazines with their glossy pages. Their physical presence, graphic artistry, and easy browsing make them much more enjoyable than scrolling through screens.
Despite the overwhelming domination of digital communication channels, I’m encouraged to see print hanging on and even thriving in some cases such as at Ortonville. In western Minnesota they are not alone as three family-owned newspapers continue to roll the presses, featured in a MinnPost story Aug. 21: What news desert? Tiny Swift County bucks trend as three family-owned papers hang on.
