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The production of the paper
The Battalion staff includes a lot of people that are never seen, for instance...
The Battalion
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Results in after delay;
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Bidding starts tonight
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Argentina seizes Falkland
Islands in South Atlantic
Dinosaurs
in Dallas?
Aggie gets presidential appointment
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inside
forecast
by David Marchand
Battalion Reporter
When you pick up a copy of
The Battalion, you get an update
on current events, maybe a little
ink on your hands and the result
of the efforts of more than 50
people.
Production of The Battalion,
which has a daily circulation of
about 23,000 copies, involves
coordinating graphic and design
work as well as type-setting va
rious stories.
Advertisements fund the ma
jority of most newspapers' pro
duction costs.
Some ads are brought to The
Battalion ready for printing.
Many are merely scribbled on a
note card along with the dimen
sions for the ad.
These often vague instruc
tions are translated into a rough
layout and are sent to the print
ing center.
The type style and size of the
ads also must be selected.
Lowell Hodges handles this pro
cess — called ad mark-up — for
The Battalion.
Hodges, who worked for the
Eagle for 22 years, said his job
basically involves designing
ads.
News articles are entered into
computer terminals in the news
room in Reed McDonald and
then fed into a computer in the
printing center. They are
printed on white paper along
with the marked-up ads.
These printed pieces then go
to the composition department.
Following layout guidelines
made by newsroom staff, Leroy
Mynar and his assistants cut
and paste the articles and ads
onto newspaper-size pages cal
led grid sheets.
Mynar does detail work such
as sizing art work, adding logos
for advertisements and placing
borders around articles.
The grid sheets, which look
like pages from a giant scrap
book, go to the photographic
and visual aids department.
They are photographed, and a
newspaper-size negative is
made.
These negatives are then
"stripped'' — sandwiched be
tween two sheets of yellow
paper.
They are placed on an alumi
num plate which is coated with a
light-sensitive film. After being
exposed to an intense light, the
plates are developed by a
machine that draws them in like
a dollar bill changer.
These plates are placed on
horizontal cylinders in the
presses where a mixture of ink
and water is injected across
them as the paper is fed
through. The ink adheres to
dark regions on the plates, and
pages are printed once each time
the cylinders revolve.
Any supplements to an issue
are inserted into the newspaper
by an inserting machine, and
the the finished copies are
bound by hand.
Mynar, who has worked on
The Battalion for two years and
worked for the Eagle for four
years, said that deadline press
ure isn't as great here as it is at
the Eagle.
Currently, The Battalion is the
only afternoon college news
paper in the nation.
COMPOSING
Henry Herrmann, a resident of Bryan,
supervises the composing of The Batta
lion each day. Composing consists of
coding each story to be printed in the
newspaper and running the coded tape
through a Linotron 202 typesetter. The
finished product is proofread and sent to
paste-up.
PASTE-UP
Paste-up involves pasting each days'
copy and pictures onto layout sheets.
The process is done under the supervi
sion of Leroy Myner. Each paper must
be pasted up before 10 a.m. to meet the
delivery deadlines.
PHOTOGRAPHY/VISUAL AIDS
The photography and artwork for the
paper is done each day by Leo Luksovs-
ky. She takes each picture and photo
graphs it to fit exactly into a space on one
of The Battalion pages. Each of the half
tones that result are sent to paste-up to
be pasted into position.