» Daily Gazette printing operations relocating to Springfield, Mass.

SCHENECTADY — The Daily Gazette Co. will relocate its printing operation to Springfield, Mass., beginning next month, Gazette Publisher John DeAugustine announced on Wednesday.

The Gazette will use the Springfield Republican’s printing operation to print its three daily newspapers, The Daily Gazette, The Recorder and The Leader-Herald, and also its free weekly publication, Your Niskayuna. The move will take place on July 22.

DeAugustine explained that the move is in keeping with the larger industry trends. The company is also financially stable.

“This is certainly not new to our industry,” he said. “Printing has been consolidated to the most effective places and this was just our time to make that decision. The Daily Gazette has the strongest financial position in 15 years. So we feel very comfortable that we’ll be able to continue to expand our newsroom and our digital offerings for years to come. We have a really good plan in place and we’re executing it.”

DeAugustine said that the readers shouldn’t experience any delays once the switchover from printing in-state to out-of-state is made next year.

“The Daily Gazette was a commercial printer, so we printed our paper quite a bit before it had to be delivered,” he said. “These newspapers will be in the market before 2:00 a.m. and it shouldn’t have any impact on our delivery times to the stores or homes.”

The company plans to eliminate 32 positions as part of its outsourcing. Ten employees of the 42-person production staff will be retained in other roles.

“We’re really sorry about the need to separate these employees,” DeAugustine said. “We’re a family-owned newspaper and we take this kind of decision very seriously. We’re offering placement services, severance pay and we’re going to try to make the transition as easy as possible for the impacted employees.”

The publisher said that the move will allow the company to take advantage of the Springfield Republican’s modern printing operation.

“Their press has more capabilities than ours,” DeAugustine said. “Their mailroom operation is more advanced. They have full postal and mailing capabilities. The Daily Gazette didn’t have those things and it was cost-prohibitive to continue to print and to make the capital investments necessary to stay in the printing business.”

The union workers in the Gazette’s production staff had been working without a contract before the decision was made to shutter the operation. Amalgamated Lithographers of America is the union that represents these workers.

“The Daily Gazette does its due diligence and researches printing options every year,” DeAugustine said. “We had a number of capital expenditures that we would have needed to make this year to ensure the smooth operation of our printing press. We do not have the inkjet technology to mail, which is becoming increasingly important in our business. So those elements really put pressure on the cost of creating newspapers.”

DeAugustine said that while the Gazette’s current press can print 20 pages in one pass, the Springfield facility has the capability to print 24 pages per pass.

“It allows us to print four additional pages of news for our readers,” he said.

DeAugustine says the company is in discussions with its clients about relocation options.

“The Daily Gazette’s mission is to produce outstanding local journalism for generations to come and this is just another step in that process,” he said. “We are focused on our news generation and the platforms we put it out on. So we’re making investments in our digital products. We’re upgrading our website and all of our business systems. But every day we have to make decisions on what we want to do in-house and what we want to outsource.”

Categories: Business, News, Schenectady, Schenectady County