Bangor Daily News Yesterday & Today

Welcome to the Bangor Daily News! This special pull-out section is our way of taking you on a self-guided tour of the newspaper. You’ll meet 11 people who work here, learn a little bit about what they do, and how their efforts converge to produce a daily newspaper.

Our jobs and backgrounds are different, but the staff from every department has much in common: family, an investment in community, and a commitment to providing you, the reader, with a superior newspaper, one valued for its credibility and accuracy, with superior reproduction and printing quality, delivered on time.

The NEWS is 115 years old today. As you read this section, you’ll probably see that although there have been impressive advances here, especially in computer, production and distribution technology, some things have stayed the same for more than a century.

The geography hasn’t changed. We truck papers six nights a week from the production facility in Hampden to Madawaska, even when it’s snowing and blowing cold. That’s like making daily deliveries of our paper to Providence, R.I.

There are 14 news bureaus located strategically to cover state government and key communities in our three editions: State (Aroostook County and distant points west and south), Coastal (Calais to Knox County) and Final (Greater Bangor to Greenville and Somerset County).

And, we still use paper. Tim Reynolds, NEWS controller (the man who pays the bills), estimates that a weekend paper of 36 pages will consume 12 tons of newsprint.

As you follow the timeline (prepared by Dick Shaw and the Graphics Desk), read Shaw’s history and study nostalgic photos of a bygone newspaper era, we would ask you to keep one thing in mind. All of what you read and see on these four pages has existed for 115 years to do just one thing: serve the public and the community of central and northern Maine with news, advertising and information our readers can trust.

Linda Quimby

Classified Sales Advertising Department

“We were on manual typewriters when I started here. Every ad had to be typed and sent to the composing room to be set on the Linotype machine,” Linda recalls, reconstructing the classified process when she took her first ad 27 years ago. Now, “I’ll tell you, they’d have to cut my right arm off before they could take my computer away from me.” Technology is a reliable partner of the Orrington resident and mother of two, and her customers.

Approximately 90 percent of the classified ads are processed by the Classified Department, and her primary responsibility is pricing the help wanted display ads. “When a help wanted ad comes in, and 80 percent are either faxed or e-mailed, they are entered into the system, billing information is typed in, and then they come to me for pricing.” The ad sales/customer relationship now focuses on a “multimedia package that includes the paper, Web and television,” Linda explains, extending a NEWS classified help wanted ad’s reach to the Internet and nine, halfhour TV programs a week under the Maine Job Hunter brand. In addition, an ad discount is offered for The Weekly. “People don’t have any idea what it takes to put a newspaper together,” Linda laughs, animated, describing a process that involves typing, pricing and rechecking ads for accuracy: “They go from the typist to me for pricing, and to the proofreader, who generally is proofing ads while also answering the phone,” and then to their place on the page. She and her husband, Steve, have been active in Scouting (their son is an Eagle Scout), and athletics, and if she didn’t enjoy her job in Classifieds, she might have considered a career in Computer Services. “I like working with people, and I like the technical part, too, working with the computer.” In her precise, sales-driven job, the computer promotes accuracy, and if the customer wants a revision, “I just go to the computer and make a change.”

Lloyd Stinson

Advertising compositor Composing Room Production Department

“The old way was physically dirty, inky, smoky,” Lloyd recalls of his first walk 36 years ago down “ad alley.” Fifteen men were filling steel page frames called “chases” with type, as lead simmered in pots on Linotype machines amid the bang and clatter of metal, shouts, noise and pervasive cigarette smoke. He remembers, “People used to ask, ‘What do you do?’ and I’d say, ‘I’m a Linotype operator.’ They had no conception of what I was talking about.” Lloyd now tells them, “‘I run a computer,’ and they know what that is, they just don’t ask you what you do with it.” Today, “it’s a lot cleaner process,” says Lloyd, who uses a mouse to build ads from mock-ups crafted by customers and salespeople.

And quiet? “It’s almost like working at Clark and Mitchell’s,” Lloyd smiles, referring to a former Bangor funeral home, “no machines making a racket while bells are going off.” Ads literally were worn out or torn apart in the old days; storage was limited.

“Today, they can save them on discs.

You could save 10,000 ads in there,” he says, his hands tiered a foot apart.

Married, father of two and a Brewer resident, Lloyd had to relearn to type: “I ran the Linotype, but the keyboard on the computer isn’t the same.” He also adjusted to a computer environment, sometimes with the help of his granddaughter, who would watch his early fumblings and advise, “No, Grampy, you don’t want to do this.” She “showed me a better way,” observes Lloyd, who believes change “hasn’t been all that bad. It’s like learning another trade all over again.” The life cycle at the NEWS is benchmarked by recurring role reversal.

Early on, new men learned from old, ink-stained hands. “Now,” Lloyd muses, “it’s the young guys coming in, and we ask them, ‘How do you do this?’ and they know. They can make a computer sing a song, almost.”

Barbara Mower

Advertising layout coordinator Advertising Department

Barb majored in marketing and minored in computers at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire, but in 19 years she has learned newspaper architecture and geography on the job: “I take what Editorial would like for space in the paper, add to that advertising clients’ requests of where they would like to place their ads, and blend that with the reality of what we can actually do on the press.” The result, she explains, “is a daily blueprint of the paper designed to serve both readers and advertisers” by skillfully sharing space and desirable color positions.

Evenings and early mornings, before a 50-minute commute, she helps her husband and two children work their St. Albans dairy farm. “I like living there; it’s such a change from being in town, especially in the spring,” says the Nokomis Regional High School graduate. And in winter? “I get here, and people are still stuck in their own driveways in town.” She does the farm books on computer, and her daily NEWS blueprints on a big-screen monitor, but recalls years ago how advertising layouts were done manually with a No. 2 pencil and a “big box of erasers!” Today, she says with a smile, the computer-driven process “is really flexible and a lot more accurate,” with the ability to “take last-minute requests from customers.” Ultimately, the job is about relationships, outside and in: “So many of us have been here so many years, things just fall into place.

We take for granted what a great place it is to work.”

Jonathan Ferland

Graphic designer Editorial Graphics Department

Playing guitar with his group or melding photo illustrations and designs for the weekly Calendar page, Jon is all about creativity, harmony and successful collaboration. “It’s easy to do good work, when you have good people to work with,” observes the 26-year-old. He recalls his “first intimidating walk through the newsroom” 31/2 years ago and observes with satisfaction how he already serves as mentor to another generation of artists and designers.

Computersavvy out of college, he says he was naive in his outdated concept of newspaper operations and pleasantly surprised by how “heavily integrated everyone is with the databases and organization of stories.

Even with computers in my life and my background, it didn’t occur to me that, ‘Yes! We can do that on a computer, too.'” Jon once spent his early mornings delivering the NEWS, and now rises every day to the challenge of skillfully blending the work of reporters, photographers and artists to make pages (like this one) visually appealing to readers. “I love the deadlines.

I love the people. It can be stressful, but there are few jobs where you can come back day after day, and redo your work until you get it right.”

Robert Caruso

Night shift foreman, Pressroom Production Department

“It is not an individual job, it’s a team job. When something goes wrong, everyone has to chip in to help. The crew has to be able to work together.

It’s always been that way in the pressroom of the Bangor Daily News.” Bob, who attended Central High of Corinth, remembers “starting in the NEWS mailroom when I was 17,” 32 years ago. He later learned the pressman’s trade (“one of the few newspaper trades left”) from an earlier generation of 30- to 40-year veterans back when the paper used oil-based ink in a letterpress process. “They were very welcoming, and very safety-conscious people, and we still are. It’s a job where you can get hurt very easily,” he says, describing the running presses with razor-edged paper; sharp, thinsteel printing plates and “nipper rollers that pull the paper [and anything else] down into the folder.” On a typical night, one man in the crew of five will “set the folder to the size of the paper” while negatives arrive from the composing room to be made into plates that are put on the press. The married Glenburn resident and father of two sons says the presses could print 70,000 copies in three hours if they ran flat-out, but they start at 10:30 p.m., have delays for two “makeovers” (replatings for changes in page content for the Coastal and Final editions) and usually are quiet again by 3 a.m.

Composing helpfully alerts the pressroom to “how many changes are coming between editions,” says Bob, who explains how production can be interrupted by paper breaks, clogged ink pumps or ink buildup on the ceramic rollers. A fisherman, snowmobiler, camper and erstwhile carpenter who shares his birth date with his first grandchild, Bob appreciates the shift 15 years ago to a flexographic press: “The water-based ink doesn’t come off on your fingers when you’re reading the paper the next day.” The press can be cleaned in half an hour with soap and water by a five-person crew – half the time and with a smaller team than the old oil-based letterpress.

“From the old press to the new press it’s a lot easier on the pressman,” he reflects philosophically, “but for the older pressmen, working nights is still a lot harder on the body.”

Steve McDonald

Machine operator, Mailing Room Production Department

“It’s come a long way, I’ve never seen it so busy,” says Steve, reflecting on 31 years of evolution in the equipment that inserts advertising fliers and other printed material into the daily newspaper.

A lifelong resident of Bangor, married, father of two, and proud grandfather to 5-month-old Daisy, Steve explains with satisfaction and amazement how refinements in mechanical technology have galloped to stay ahead of customer and reader demands. “Especially when coupons hit the scene in the ’70s, they had to do something.” Steve recalls. “The old inserting equipment could only do three fliers.” As “the pace picked up on Friday nights, then Sunday night and we were inserting the funnies, and possibly a weekend magazine,” the NEWS “put in new equipment that could do eight inserts at a time.” In 1989, Steve continues, “when we went out to the new Hampden plant, we brought in a machine that could put 20 inserts into one paper.” Steve describes a typical week. Momentum picks up on Wednesday, when The Weekly is inserted: “That’s really starting to take off,” he says of the publication, which is inserted or mailed to more than 50,000 customers. On Thursday, “we put the weekend package out [coupons, retail fliers, TV Watch, USA Weekend], stuffing it into the Style section.” On Friday, when the weekend paper comes together, Steve and the mailroom team often put in additional inserts, “a good sign,” he observes. “It means we’re busy.” The effort is streamlined and efficient, he explains, workers “feed hoppers [stacks of fliers to be inserted], put the slips on [routing information for delivery], and send bundles to be wrapped in plastic bands by the strapper and then right out the door to the truck drivers.” It’s an achievement of experienced hands and sophisticated equipment.

“Say you’re feeding a Shaw’s insert, and it skips a paper. The machine can tell it was missed, and bring it around to insert it.” Playing softball in Brewer-“31 years, and I haven’t broken a leg,” he says, rapping the desktop – and babying his ’67 Barracuda are important parts of his personal life, but he says of the NEWS: “I am proud to be working here. It has given me a good life over the years.”

Tim Archambault

Online services manager Computer Services Department

“I connect people all over the world to Maine, through the Internet,” says Tim, a 10-year employee, as he describes his pivotal place on the time continuum in the newspaper business. His digital content offers archival material and brings news, real estate and job opportunities to people in the present, even as he encourages NEWS departments to evolve and successfully make the transition into the future.

Tim, a former district manager in the Circulation Department, earned his master’s degree in business administration from the Maine Business School at the University of Maine with assistance from the NEWS. He believes the Internet’s inherent threats to the newspaper’s critical news and advertising functions already are being turned into advantages by the NEWS, which can post breaking stories immediately, while products such as Maine Job Hunter and Maine Real Estate Hunter exploit a dominant combination of print, online and multimedia advertising opportunities. The father of three boys, active in local youth hockey and baseball, Tim serves the town of Holden on its committees for comprehensive planning and budget and finance.

“I’m a strong believer that the Internet is not about technology,” the Brewer High School graduate explains, “but about marketing and communications.

It’s another tool to manage your product’s price, promotion and distribution.

You can service your industry, even yourself.”

Jeanne Luetjen

Administrative assistant Circulation Department

“I used to bring printouts home like this,” Jeanne says, her hands describing a foot-high pile of circulation reports, “and count them all by hand.

Now, I enter them in a computer.

We’ve come a long way.” A Hampden Academy graduate, Jeanne navigates the process of reporting the NEWS’ “ABC numbers,” official circulation figures compiled by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, a private company that imposes industry standards for accurately counting circulation figures for newspapers and magazines. Newspapers report their ABC numbers twice annually, in March and September, the latter report providing a yearly townby- town circulation breakdown. “That number is probably more important to advertisers than it is to the public,” Jeanne explains, “because it allows them to get the best readership for their money.” A 21-year veteran of the Maine Air National Guard and mother of twin 11-year-old daughters, Brittany and Brianna, Jeanne chauffeurs softball and dance events when she isn’t focused on her job of 17 years. It includes payroll for the department and coordinating newspaper delivery over the huge geography of Maine with three regional managers, 17 district managers and more than 620 nonemployee private contractors who serve as carriers and motor route drivers.

Jeanne takes complaints, “when people have exhausted everything else,” and now regularly works with customers by e-mail to start and stop delivery. She takes plastic, too, in a “brand new project that’s been very successful” allowing customers to pay for subscriptions with credit cards. “It’s our responsibility in the Circulation Department to get the paper from the plant in Hampden to our customers’ homes and stores, and to get it distributed on time,” a daunting challenge in an often uncooperative climate, “but I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else with my kids.”

Robin Goodwin

Accounts receivable bookkeeper Business office

An instrument-rated private pilot, Robin brings a steady hand to posting accounts receivable for display advertising, and an intuitive sense for smoothing potentially turbulent, lowvisibility situations in customer service.

A small part of a business office engrossed in internal daily details of payroll, employee and company accounting procedures, “we have a lot more to do with the public in general,” Robin says of her three-person section.

Customers with display and small classified ads, retail ads, old bills and even circulation issues call Robin, who connects by telephone and computer to the customer and their billing history.

“I’m powerless to solve the problem by adjusting or charging off an ad,” says the Atkinson resident, who instead relies on interpersonal skill, conciliation and finesse. Often obliged to be professional and direct, the nineyear veteran knows the reaction shouldn’t be taken personally: “We’re just the messenger … sort of like being stuck in the middle.” One recurring problem: “People send in a lot of unidentified payments, a check with no indication of what it’s for, either an ad or subscription.”Which is it? Finding out is part of a week’s work. But on weekends, Robin’s in the air, flying with her pilot husband and a third airborne generation. Just like at work after she resolves a tricky problem, when she smoothly touches down at Old Town Municipal Airport there’s a feeling of satisfaction. The soft landing can bring an approving assessment from her passenger, a 4-year-old granddaughter: “Good one, Grammy.”

Don Corey

Business systems manager Computer Services Department

Don used his associate degree in construction to build two houses. His first experience with a fly rod netted five salmon in an afternoon, hooked on his hand-tied Black Ghost. But computers? “I had no knowledge of computers, but back then,” he recalls of his job change 20 years ago, “nobody had much knowledge about computers.” Six years in the mailroom and a short stint on switchboard had led to the opportunity in new technology with now-antique 8-inch floppy discs, a lumbering central computer, nearly 1,600 custom programs built in-house, and an education he describes as “absolutely overnight, on the job.” Now responsible for half the company software and hardware, supporting advertising, circulation, accounting and Human Services, the Brewer High and EMVTI graduate foresees a decentralized, expanded PC work environment, using “third-party software to do some of the processes we’ve written inhouse.” This shift will “place more of the ownership [for operating computers] on the user,” with greater responsibility on Don to serve “in more of a maintenance resource role, making sure the hardware and the network is running properly.” It’s part of what the Holden resident and father of two sees as a movement to “working a little smarter,” a trend that already has streamlined the NEWS’ unique votegathering system on election nights.

Tallies reported from more than 650 Maine voting precincts flow into the database and then into news stories and onto the Internet. Don has been processing this time-sensitive data for 23 years and recalls the hours it once took to set up the system, with additional time lost “punching the results onto big floppy diskettes” to be fed to the central computer. “I guess I’m the dinosaur there now,” says Don, smiling, as he points out how with Web browsers and PCs, the turnaround on vote totals from intake to Web posting is less than 10 minutes.

Doug Dunphy

Mechanical superintendent

Every successful business has at least one Doug: “I just make sure all the equipment is running.” His sincere, humble and understated explanation covers a range of equipment with a frightening capability to shut down a newspaper. If a stacker, strapper or conveyor goes down in the Hampden mailroom, call Doug. If Editorial or Advertising in Bangor needs wiring strung, call Doug. Three years out of EMVTI with an associate degree in electrical power technology, and a master electrician, Doug in 1980 was working for a contractor at the NEWS and was asked to stick around, on staff, launching his “training under fire.” Married, a native of the Sugarloaf area and father of three, Doug lives in Hampden, very convenient for the man who runs the NEWS’ ultimate service department “with the help of some very good people in the pressroom and mailroom.” Doug seasonally oversees air conditioning, heating, landscaping and snow removal at the Bangor and Hampden sites, but the man inherently is grounded to technology and power, from the 480-volt lines feeding the production facility to the coaxial cable for Editorial’s police scanners and Circulation’s radios. “One of the most fascinating things is adjusting the drives on the press with an oscilloscope. The drives take their AC current and convert it to DC,” Doug explains, adding that the balance is critical to smooth functioning of the presses. Doug makes house calls, at all hours, at both sites. A member of Penobscot Valley Electrical Associates, he believes prevention is best, “keeping track of what needs to be done so it doesn’t break down,” but “if the phone rings in the middle of the night, you know that something has run amok.”