The birth of a newspaper
In 1868 E.C. Campbell began the publication of The Haldimand Advocate in Cayuga. It was first printed in the rear of Campbell’s Book Store, the building on the corner of Ouse and King streets. The press and type were destroyed twice by fire, but Campbell continued its publication.
According to the Page Historical Atlas of the County of Haldimand 1879, “The Advocate is Reform in politics, is neatly printed with new press and type, and enjoys a good circulation.” During the 19th century it was very common for newspapers to pick their political parities. Rival newspapers would publish “mudsling” articles on the political parties they opposed. Lines were drawn between Reform and Tory throughout the various papers.
The paper was published using a Gutenberg printing press. The method, known as the “Letterpress Era,” was time consuming but effective. A wooden frame was used to hold groups of letters called blocks. These blocks were put together to make words and sentences. All the letters were put in reverse. The blocks were inked, paper was placed over the blocks and then passed through the roller to make sure the ink transferred to the paper. When the paper was lifted, all of the letters would be readable. These printing presses were operated by hand until the early 19th century when steam power was used, which eliminated the hand operator.
Meanwhile, The Hagersville Press published its first edition on September 6, 1932. The first publisher was D.G. Mounteer.
The printing process changed in the late 19th century with the invention of the Linotype Machine, which used the process of hot metal typesetting. The process used a keyboard, like the typewriter, to set the type and produced the desired text without having to hand set each letter or space. This process was used well into the 1950s.
Offset Process replaced the Linotype Machine. Offset printing involved using a computer to create a plate, which was placed on a cylinder. Ink was then applied to the plate cylinder, which rolled against a rubber cylinder which rolled the ink onto sheets of paper. This enabled the printing of large quantities of newspapers, magazines, books, and other printed materials.
Say hello to The Haldimand Press
The Haldimand Advocate and The Hagersville Press amalgamated in 1975, becoming The Haldimand Press. The first issue of the new Haldimand Press was published on January 16, 1975 using the new Offset Process.
Other publishers of the paper were W. H. Speers, George Reeves, R.H. Davey, Gordon L. Hall, and Bob Hall.
The Haldimand Press was run by Bob Hall until late 2014, when Jill Morison purchased the paper. Deciding to retire from The Press in 2017, Morison sold The Haldimand Press to reporters Kaitlyn Clark and Jillian Taylor.
The process of putting a newspaper together today is very different than it was in the pre-computer age. Editorial is typed up in word processing documents – sent by email from freelancers outside the office or saved onto a shared server for in-office reporters. Meanwhile advertisements are booked and then created digitally, to be sent off electronically for changes and approval.
Even since Kaitlyn and Jillian took ownership there have been changes to the printing process at The Haldimand Press.
For instance, when Kaitlyn and Jillian started in 2015, every Monday morning at 10 a.m. when the deadline passed for ad bookings, the ads used to be “dummied in” by hand to scale on a tabloid sized grid paper; this created a map of where the ads and any feature pages would be displayed in that week’s paper. From there the map would be used as a guide to set up the pages in a computer design program called Quark. The editorial would be similarly mapped out based on its importance (i.e. front page news) and its size to fit within the remaining space.
Once the ads and editorial were all laid out digitally, these pages would be printed out and read over, with the multiple editors taking turns to note any changes by hand first before one person would make all the changes on the computer.
Seeing the opportunity to make this process a little more efficient, The Press changed design programs from Quark to InDesign. As part of the Adobe suite, InDesign offered a subscription that could be used across computers (to work from the office and at home, for instance) and combined with programs like Photoshop (used in photo editing). Additionally, The Press reduced its office paper usage by dropping the manual page layout and editing processes. Now, all pages are set up, produced, and edited entirely from the InDesign program (although we still have to take turns with each page, to ensure no one overwrites the work of another in the office).
Once the pages have been completed and read over again for any errors, they are turned into PDFs and sent to the printing company electronically on Tuesday.
The current printer, Huron Web, located in Wyoming, ON, prints the paper overnight and delivers the paper to The Press office in Hagersville on Wednesday mornings. Papers are then delivered to dealer locations and Canada Post offices around the county. Canada Post offices then deliver the papers to your mailbox (when there isn’t a strike in progress, of course!).