Mammoths of machines, the Manhattan Mercury's printing presses consume the entire room, dwarfing the people they depend on. Just like any machine, they need nurturing, care and maintenance — and there's no such thing as press-and-play with these. They need attention, and a lot of it.
The machines spin a giant spool of paper throughout their web. the sheets go through several rollers of colors, each roller applying a cmyk color to the sheet. this is where things get tricky.
Press plates are slotted into each color of rollers before the press run. these plates can shift during production; even a slight shift can misalign an entire color and destroy the paper's look.
The press runs are for more than Manhattan's papers (the Mercury and the Kansas State Collegian). The Mercury prints 14 newspapers for the surrounding area, allowing those communities to stay informed and history alive with a recurring historical document. It's a mutual tradeoff — printing the other papers helps the Mercury fund its work.