Getting down to business

Courtesy photo

The Ernie Pyle scholars visit the St. Petersburg Times.

Though we thoroughly enjoyed our time sitting in the sun and seeing the sites of St. Petersburg, the Ernie Pyle Scholars were ready to get down to business, and that is exactly what we did today. We started our day with a guided tour of the Times Printing Plant, which prints the St. Petersburg Times along with the New York Daily News, the New York Post and even the London Express. Tom Frick informed our group about many routine processes of the press.

Articles are printed on aluminum plates and then covered in photo polymer. After the polymer gets washed off there is a blue and silver aluminum bender, which allows the aluminum to attach to the machine that prints the copies onto paper. The sheets are covered in ink and where there is no ink, in water. The water, known as “purified mist,” is the most purified water there is, according to Mr. Frick, a print quality analyst for the Times.

Photo by Michael Beam

Print Quality Analyst Tom Frick answers a question during the Ernie Pyle Scholars’ tour of the St. Petersburg Times Color Printing Plant Tuesday.

After our printing tutorial, Mr. Frick showed us the paper storage room, where each roll of paper is 7.5 miles long and the paper currently in storage is enough to be rolled from St. Petersburg to Detroit (that’s a lot of paper). We finished the tour and headed to the St. Petersburg Times headquarters to meet some Hoosier alumni. Editor, CEO and Chairman of the St. Petersburg Times Paul Tash, who was once the editor of the Indiana Daily Student, hosted us for an enjoyable lunch.

The paper is quite a thriving publication. Another publication of the St. Petersburg times is the Tampa Bay Times. The Times has a great online Web site with one link in particular worth recognizing. Take out your pens everyone and write this down: politifact.com. This edgy site provides an interesting perspective on politics today and was recognized as one of the “Best Overall Newspaper Web (sites)” by the Newspaper Association of America’s Digital Edge.

Our discussion unfolded into a currently popular topic among journalists: convergence in the media. Tash, along with Nancy Waclawek, Eric Deggans, Rob Hooker and Tim Nickens all joined in on our conversation. Tash asked a key question during our luncheon, “Where are newspapers going?”

Everyone had their two cents about convergence in the media. Nevertheless, I think all of us came to the conclusion that newspapers aren’t going anywhere for a while. In order to survive, however, some adaptations and changes in the current newspaper world must be made. Those papers that find the fine balance between convergence and classic newspaper style will prevail. Additionally, looking at the business perspective, newspaper revenue remains in print ads, which of course are an extremely important aspect of every paper. The conversation continued with questions about values and convergence, the ethics of blogging and the ethics of anonymous sources.

It was truly a great experience to be able to converse with extremely successful journalists (most of whom were Hoosiers!) about the future of a world we care so much about. Newspapers are the core of journalism – that is undeniable. It’s where it all began. And it some sense, it is comforting to know there is a place for newspapers in our future.

For more on convergence in the media see Eric Deggans’ Blog: http://blogs.tampabay.com/media/
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This entry was posted on March 11, 2008 at 9:41 am and is filed under Blogs, Florida: Learning about convergence. You can trackback from your own site.