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UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION love to see old Joe shake his head in disbelief as he wipes all the names from Arizona - oops, Wyoming - off his list. Utah's out-state dailies followed the lead of the smaller papers as soon as retirement of their letterpress equipment became practical. The Provo Daily Herald unveiled its first offset paper on February 15, 1970, recalls Jerry Myrup, a 45-year member of its production staff. His tenure at the paper as a carrier, then a part-time staff member actually goes back more than a half-century. The changeover was synchronized with the opening of the paper's second new building in a 10-year period of time, he points out. Improved appearance was only one objective of offset conversion, Myrup's summation reflects. "People costs" were important, too. Prior to switching to offset, seven Linotypes were in use in the composing room, where up to 23 people were employed. Five pressmen and two stereotypers were producing the Herald on a 24-page Goss rotary tubular press. Page capacity of the offset press, when installed, doubled that of the retired rotary and only six pressmen were required. Fourteen employees produced advertising on two Photon 200B typesetting machines and set news type on two Compugraphics, a 2900 and a 4900. Offset conversion meant a net difference of ten people on the payroll. Like other dailies and its smaller sister-papers in Utah, the Herald has continued to upgrade typesetting equipment as computerization has triggered one advancement after another. "For me it's been an eventful 50 years," Myrup concludes. Through this period of change, the state's two largest dailies, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News, were acutely aware a revolution was in progress. But they were so financially committed to existing letterpress equipment that they were forced to continue its use until their investment was fulfilled. The papers were and are jointly produced in the plant of Newspaper Agency Corporation, so in some respects they were as linked as a set of congenitally united Siamese twins. What 238 |
