Constantly improving our papers

Jim Cumming,
Publisher

I sometimes wonder what exactly is my job. My father used to say “that anything that happens or doesn’t happen is the responsibility of the publisher.” Those words have given me pause to think about the paper and its various divisions.
My father who began his career when he was 14 years old, learned to operate a linotype and all the printing presses at the Fort Frances Times. In those days while you might be a linotype operator or pressman you were also its mechanic.
My father also was a writer and a sales person. There really wasn’t a job in the business that he didn’t know how to do.
So it wasn’t surprising to see him doing everything from shoveling snow, to patching roofs, to painting, to installing equipment. Those were his jobs and they were his loves. The standing joke was that if he couldn’t find an extra screw after he had fixed something, it wasn’t going to work.
He was always looking at making the paper better, by finding people with new skills, by incorporating new ways of producing the paper and by using the latest in equipment. The newsroom grew. The advertising department grew, and the capacity of the newspapers grew.
Much has changed. Very little of what we do, sees paper until it rolls off the press. The job of the publisher continues to evolve. Many of the responsibilities that my father had have been split between my brother Don, my sister Linda and I.
Don has my father’s natural inclination to know how things work. And tinkering on a press, regardless of size is something he enjoys. When we installed a large guillotine last summer and the extra units on the press the year before, Don was up to his elbows with the erectors and press installers in putting everything together.
This past fall a new plate burner was installed. It was a used machine with very little time on it. The burner came out of Transcontinental printing in Winnipeg. In shipping a cable had broken, and Don lead our crew in fixing and installing the machine. As I said he has that intuition on how to make things work. He has taken over that job of my father.
Linda likes to work numbers. And she is essential to making the office, accounts receivable, and accounts payable operate. She has learned the software of all those computer programs as well as software for payroll. She spends much of her day on the computer doing various jobs. She’ll tell you that she has trained many a person on the telephone help desk at a number of software companies.
With a change in staff, and a change in years, she is finding herself up to her neck in challenges as she trains new people on jobs.
As much as I would like to say that the job hasn’t changed, it has. The Times through its publications is constantly trying to improve its products. Over time we have moved to more digital photographs. There are still occasions when film produces a better picture and we use traditional 35 mm cameras for that.
In the mid 1990’s the paper began publishing a small version of the paper electronically. Our Electronic Publishing department has grown and regularly wins national and provincial awards for the online edition of the Fort Frances Times, Daily Bulletin and Rainy River Record. The people in the department are very talented.
We constantly look at our three newspapers and try to examine what we can do to make them better. The Times increased the size of the press, to enable the newspaper to print colour pictures.
At the Rainy River Record, we have added a craft column, and a weekly crossword puzzle and a local recipe column as well.
In 2003, the Fort Frances Times and the Rainy River Record participated in the Combase Readership study. It provided insight on how we might be able to improve our papers. Annually the Fort Frances Times, Rainy River Record compete for both provincial and national awards.
We received notice that the Times is in the final three for two provincial awards. We will learn of our fate the first weekend in March. The awards are another measuring stick for our newspapers.
From the awards, we will also pick up ideas on how to make improvements.
We also look for feedback from our readers. If you have ideas on how we can make improvements please let us know. You can contact me either by phone 274-5373 or by email jcumming@fortfrances.com.