FOUR DECADES OF PRODUCING NORTH’S OWN PAPER

IT was 40 years ago, on the same day as Princess Di’s wedding was being beamed around the world that Steve Phillips started work as an inserter at the Townsville Bulletin.

It was an arduous, physical process in those days to produce the paper from the Ogden St premises.

Newspaper pages were pasted up by compositors and a photo was taken of the pages. Two of those pages were put into a drum roll and then the printers gummed and finished the pages by hand.

Papers were printed in segments and the inserters were responsible for assembling the paper.

Each night the print team was responsible for producing 28,000 copies of the Townsville Bulletin – it was the only paper they printed.

Spot colour was the latest innovation and was used primarily in ads. The only colours available were red, blue, green and yellow.

“We had fountains of green, red, blue and yellow that we put on the machine,” Steve said.

“When we started printing The Australian we had a separate unit for doing the red Australian logo on the front page.”

Now, with the press of a button full colour pages can be sent from a raft of newsrooms around the country to Steve’s laptop where he can check off all of the pages for a publication before sending them plate.

With another press of a button the plates can be called over to the press ready to be loaded up for printing.

Hoppers collate the papers ready for distribution.

When things go wrong, Steve can log in from wherever he is to check files and solve problems.

The team at the press site is responsible for printing four daily papers as well as a range of preprint and regional publications.

Steve moved from inserting to the press room in 1983 and then went on to complete his apprenticeship.

Over the year he has worked in many different areas of paper production and is now the press planning and CTP supervisor.

One of the biggest nights for Steve and the team was the Black Hawk tragedy. News broke late about the crash of two army helicopters near Townsville. Journalists and photographers scrambled to get the details as the press team dug in for a late night.

The press site team was in the process of transitioning from the Ogden St site to the Flinders St site so were producing negatives at Ogden St and driving them down to Flinders St for printing.

“It was well after midnight when we finished (printing the paper),” Steve said.

Despite all of the change and challenges over the years the team at the press site has never missed an edition.

“There has never been a day where we haven’t printed a paper,” Steve said.

He said even after Yasi smashed into Townsville and the city was inundated with floodwaters the print team still turned up to work.