Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / April 30, 1987, edition 1 / Page 9
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The Blue Banner cSjiEoiaC Sufi.jiCe.nie.ni April 30, 1987 The process: how we do it — v-f Staff Photo—Adam Brooks One of 2,700 copies of the Blue Banner rolls off the presses. Each Thursday morning Mountain Readi Publishing, which pro duces the IWANNA shopper’s guide, prints the wedt’s issue. The school year 1986-87 will go down as a banner ;year for the Blue Banner. The purchase this month of new software and a new printer has en abled the staff to initiate in-house production of headlines and marked the last step in a long struggle to obtain a complete desktop publishing system. The realization of this goal was accomplished through the combina tion of greatly increased ad sales, management’s excruciatingly tight belt and the staffs and advisor’s commitment. Desktop publishing means that the Banner staff does everything except actually print the paper. Reporters create their story at the keyboard of one of four IBM per sonal computers purchased last sum mer. After the 6 p.m. Monday dead line, editors transfer the stories from the reporters’ personal disks to a departmental disk for future edit ing. The paper is actually laid out on Wednesdays. Editors, assistant edit ors, reporters seeking extra credit and photographers all converge on Carmichael 208 to vie for computers and space at the light tables. Early in the afternoon the photo graphy editors begin the process of producing half-tones in the Banner’s darkroom. Working from a print of available negatives called a contact sheet, editors make photo selections and approximate the needed size. Because commercial equipment to produce half-tones is extremely ex pensive, the Banner produced a homemade version. A staff member borrowed a vacuum cleaner from his mother (who probably assumed the machine would be used to clean the floor) and proceeded to dissect it, extracting the machine’s vital or gans. The process begins when the ne gative is projected onto a gridded, hole-speckled piece of wood. Special photographic paper is placed on the board, and an 84-line screen (an expensive piece of plastic covered with tiny dots) is placed over the paper, the vacuum is turned on, and the,, suctipp,, tiightly , ,a41)er,es,, , screen to the paper as the negative is exposed. Finally, the photographic paper is exposed to yellow light for a few seconds, so no area of the print will appear white. The paper is then de veloped in the usual photographic process. Amid the intermittent roaring of the vacuum, the motion of bodies moving from the printer to the cut ter to the waxer to the light tables and the intermingling of a blaring box, melodious singing, curses and laughter, last minute stories are v^rritten and the editors read and correct each other’s copy. Coded to a print format (devel oped through WordPerfect software) that accomodates the page layout, the laser printer produces camera- ready copy with a newsprint-style font. Don’t breathe a sigh of relief. The story still must be molded to the appropriate size (depending on its newsworthiness) and available space. During the Monday editorial board meeting, the editor decides how many pages to run. The decision is based on the number of stories and photographs assigned, which in turn is based on what’s happening in the UNCA community. The amoimt of ads sold by ad representatives is also a determinig factor in this de cision. Finally, with photographs in place and the pages laid out, editors and their assistants screw up their faces and stare dazedly into space, occa sionally muttering an active verb. A newcomer might think one too many brain cells took flight, but this is actually the beginning ritual of headline composition. After deter mining whether a headline will fit in the space provided, the editors give them to the editor, who prints them out and returns them. In the meantime, with exacto knife and the dreaded blue pencil in hand, the copy editor makes the rounds. Reading the laid-out copy for the first time, the copy editor looks for typographical and other errors that have slipped by unno ticed. ^ limps home, the editor must deliver the camera-ready copy to the print er bright and early Thursday morn ing. Generally around noon Thurs day, the Blue Banner is ready for Tonight as the staff puts the Ban ner 'to bed’ for the last time this semester, we especially appreciate our advisor, Greg Lisby, who has worked beyond what is expected of his position to bring about the real ization of the desktop publishing . sys)em. . dehvery by a staff member to stands scattered throughout the UNCA mnej. , imp, . .coromjipity,
University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper
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April 30, 1987, edition 1
9
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