"Newsworthy" trip

Thursday brought us to our local newspaper to see just how it all works. Our tour guide , Gregoria Vallejo told us all about the newspaper it's history and all sorts of other facts. The paper has been in operation since 1868 and puts out 50,000 copies per day that reach as far east as the Kansas border, west to Salida, south to Raton and north to Colorado Springs. They go through 72 rolls per week each roll weighing in at 1,700pounds of paper.And just how many people does it take to put out all those papers? 225 people to be exact. I don't think it includes the newspaper boys and such but that is still alot of people. We spoke with one of the reporters doing a golf piece and I noticed that all the computers are Mac's . We inquired about this and he said that most newspapers use mac's because they are easier to use. Huh I didn't know that I still don't understand the difference to be quite honest. The newspaper also boasts a printing machine that is so new they have only 5 in the USA and theirs is the 2nd one. It puts the paper on aluminum sheets and then prints from that. It really simplifies the way the old machine had done it. She explained that to the kids but I was busy yapping at how cool the machines and such were I missed most of this part. The printing press uses only 4 basic colors to do all its printing.

cyan (blue)
magenta (red)
yellow
black

She showed us how this works, it was really cool. She had a sample picture and put the yellow part down, it was on an overhead type plastic. The she put the red over that picture and you could see that it was a mom and daughter. Finally she put the blue one and it shadowed it and the black one came last and it made the picture crisp. I think us moms found it alot more interesting then the kids although they did like it too. We also covered a small bit of history with the Gutenberg printing press that mechanized printing. Here is a lesson plan for the gutenberg press.
http://www.education-world.com/a_tsl/archives/00-2/lesson0019.shtml

The paper has it's own fitness center and still has some of their old machines around like a muesum room, they were fascinating to look at. We were treated to pads of paper, the sunday comics which won't be out for 2 more days as well. Of course I took an insane amount of pictures I think it was around 50 , I won't bore you with every single last one but here are some of the best.

Our Tour guide Gregoria showing the kids about the paper
The newsroom. I was unsuccesful at getting all the signs hanging showing what each section was.
Meeting a reporter as he tells us about the golf piece he is working on
A little information about how they store all the old papers and where
This is how they used to store them. They bound them and made them books. Kathy really wanted to smell them(wink)

What is this?

I know this is an old video recorder. Cool huh?

A little information about how papers used to be printed in years past.

They hand carved rubber stamps to printing.Wow what alot of work and craftsmenship. These are a set of wedding announcments

Kathy points out neat window art of some near and dear comics

Here is the printing press with the aluminum sheets .

The boys look on as we are show how this all works

Some of the aluminum shets set out to be ready when needed.

The yellow picture first

Now the red and you can see it's a mom and daughter

Blue defines it even more and black gives it that crisp edge

Do they look like they are having fun?

Storage room for all the rolls of paper they need. They did have recycled paper.

Her the kids hear about the paper rolls . Did you know they come from Canada?

This machine assembles the paper.

Vanessa