Newspaper Printing Press

At the end of August I set up a tour of the Journal and Courier, the local newspaper in Lafayette.  We invited all our friends and had a really fun experience seeing the ginormous printing press at work.  We learned that they not only print our towns newspaper, but newspapers and ads for many of the surrounding towns and even some cities out of state.

First we had a short overview of the entire printing process and were shown the four plates that make up each page (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black).  The room where the plates are created is a dark yellow.

The giant computer that runs the printing operation.  In the ceiling there was a track that ran the printed and folded newspapers into a large room for packaging.

The actual printer itself is incredibly loud.  We waited for them to finish a printing run before we went in to get a closer look at the press and supplies. The tanks hold a year supply of ink, except the black which holds six months.

Admittedly many of the kids were more interested in running, jumping, and playing in the large space.

The rolls of paper waiting to be used.

The room where they packaged newspapers and inserted the ads.

At the end of the tour we asked if we could have some of the scraps and each left with a roll of paper for many projects to come.