Newspaper production moving to new home

CHARLOTTETOWN - Page building and pre-press operations for Transcontinental Media's Maritime newspapers, including The News in New Glasgow, will be housed under one roof in a unique specialized centre in Charlottetown by year-end, the company announced Wednesday.
"The goal here is to bring the best, most creative team of page designers and ad creators we have together to improve the look of the newspapers and increase efficiency," said Richard Russell, publisher of The News, Truro Daily News and Amherst Daily News. "The move will hopefully lead to better looking papers while allowing local reporters and editors to concentrate on news gathering rather than laying out the pages."
Russell added it is almost a return to the older times in the newspaper business when editors and reporters focused on gathering the news, while the layout of the pages was done by a separate department within the newspaper.
The new centre will offer specialized services with state-of-the-art equipment that will allow local newspaper employees to concentrate on providing quality local content, while the technical aspects will be managed by the centre.
"In recent years editors have been more focused on building pages than gathering news. This changes all that for the better I believe," Russell explained.
Among the other papers included in the move besides The News are the Amherst Daily News, Truro Daily News, Summerside Journal Pioneer and Charlottetown Guardian and several weekly newspapers that fall under the company's media umbrella in the three Maritime provinces.
The transfer of all the newspaper page building and pre-press operations will be starting in March 2010.
Staffing levels will increase at the new centre as the newspaper operations are gradually transferred throughout the year. The new positions created at the centre will be offered to the employees of the local newspapers holding similar positions.
As always, Transcontinental Medias' commitment is to better serve its customers and stay ahead in an ever-changing market.
The creation of similar centres in other provinces has proven to be very effective, as the overall quality of the products improved significantly where processes were simplified.
Transcontinental Media is a subsidiary of Transcontinental (TSX: TCL.A, TCL.B), with operations in Canada, the United States and Mexico, with revenues of $2.4 billion in 2008.