NEW ORLEANS — One of the nation’s oldest newspapers hosted its own party on Super Bowl Sunday.

Ray Maly, vice president and production manager of The Times-Picayune (daily, 254,897; Sunday, 285,425) accommodated more than 200 guests who toured the paper as part of the Metro Users Group conference.

Visitors learned how this Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper streamlined and modernized its production operations.

Ray Maly, vice president and production director for The Times-Picayune, in the plateroom.

(from left): Wayne G. Bean, director of operations, San Fernando Valley facility for the Los Angeles Times, Richard Sutis, chief executive officer, Goss International, and Frank Cilia, project manager, Goss International.
Photos: Mary L. Van Meter

The paper’s production facility is built around 52 Goss Headliner offset units, consisting of 10 four-color units, seven mono units and 25 units with half-decks and five three-color over mono-stacked units.

All units are managed via Rockwell Automation press control systems.

The Goss pressline is 17 years old; it replaced Hoe Colormatic letterpress units the paper originally installed in 1964, Maly said. Those presses were converted to dilitho in 1976.

Three years ago, the paper converted the Goss units to a 50-inch web. The paper runs in both collect and straight modes.

The paper has six news zones for the daily main, 19 zones for Thursday production and 16 zones for the Sunday product. Zone changes come from both the advertising and the editorial sides.

The Times-Picayune has six Ferag conveyors, three wire conveyors and uses a Technotrans digital pulse dampener system on the Goss presses.

Pressroom employees are responsible for all platemaking operations, Maly said. The majority of plates are produced on the night shift. All platemaking is done on Western Lithotech machines.