KBA Colora Presses Gain Newspaper Quality Award

The Buffalo News in the USA claimed first place in the America East Print Quality Contest for the offset division (of over 100,000 circulation).

The Buffalo News in the USA claimed first place in the America East Print Quality Contest for the offset division (of over 100,000 circulation).

Buffalo's two new KBA Colora presses were only launched in May of 2004, when they replaced five 47-year-old letterpress machines.

As Bryan Carr, The News's director of production, admitted: "For our operators, who had been operating mechanical letterpress, it was a big swing to PC-based controls.

There was quite a learning curve.

It was steep, but fortunately it was short." Gary Owen, marketing and newspaper sales director at KBA North America, was pleasantly surprised by the award.

He said: "Buffalo's been running offset for just a very, very short time, so to be already reaping quality awards speaks volumes about the quality of their people and their operation." The News outdistanced 14 other entrants in its category, including the Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle and the (Syracuse, NY) Post-Standard, which finished second and third respectively.

Carr said it was great that three upstate New York papers were recognised, especially given the high level of collaboration he shares with the Democrat and Chronicle's vice president of production, Bernie Szachara and the Post-Standard's production director, Patricia McAluney.

Carr was generous in spreading credit for the award, complimenting pressroom manager Paul Brown and his pressmen, pre-press manager Bill Marzahn and his staff, and KBA's training managers, who he said, "did an excellent job.

They were very helpful." Brown added: "The technology integrated on our new KBA presses allows us to print very high quality with minimum newsprint waste and unprecedented lean staffing levels." Melinda Condon, vice president of association services for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, the sponsor of America East, commented: "Winners see the award as a source of pride.

It's important for them to be able to say they have award-winning print quality.

It tells their advertisers and their readers that they care about their product.

And I think it also gives them a chance to say to their owners and shareholders that the millions of dollars they spent on that new press were well worth it." Those points resonated with Carr, who said: "We take great pride in this accomplishment.

I think it establishes our level of quality with advertisers and readers alike." For the competition, participants submitted six copies of their newspapers (less inserts) for a particular week in November.

They were not told in advance which week's papers would be selected for judging.

Three independent judges evaluated each newspaper entry in six different areas: black ink laydown, colour ink laydown, colour registration, halftone quality, page alignment and overall print appearance.

The judges are experienced production workers who are specifically trained on how to evaluate the entries.

Scores are averaged.

Newspapers are divided in to different divisions including offset, flexo and letterpress, and scores are weighed against newspapers of similar circulation.

Circulation divisions include under 25,000; 25,000 to 50,000; 50,000 to 100,000; and over 100,000.

This year, 96 newspapers entered overall.

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