Outtakes – Morning News Blows Fuse

The Oct. 5 issue of The Morning News didn’t look anything like what readers had become accustomed to since early September.rAlso, only the front section and the classified section were published that day instead of the usual six sections.

rWhat happened?

rA worker pulled a wire from the newspaper’s 30-year-old, 14-unit Goss Urbanite press in Springdale and fried the electrical system.

r”We’re doing a lot of repair and maintenance work to the press, so every day we’re disassembling it and putting it back together in the evening,” said Tom Stallbaumer, The Morning News’ publisher.

rIn an emergency, area newspapers have an agreement that they will print the competition’s newspaper. The Northwest Arkansas Times offered to help in this case.

r “The problem was they couldn’t print us until after their press run, which would have beeen 3 a.m.,” Stallbaumer said.

rInstead, the Morning News went to press in Springdale at 1 a.m. after a partial repair of their press. That way, readers would still receive the newspaper at a decent hour the next morning, even though it was only two sections.

rThe Morning New has ordered a new 36-unit Dauphin Graphics press, but it wouldn’t be up and running until a year from now, Stallbaumer said.