PALATKA, Fla. — Although the Palatka Daily News printed its last issue earlier this week on their own printing press, there are nowhere near issuing their final copy.
“We don't have any, any intention of stopping the printed edition of the paper, we're not going digital, like a lot of newspapers across the country are that's not our goal. Our goal is to have a newspaper here in the community that we serve,” explained Palatka Daily News Publisher Jennifer Mnoates.
In fact, they were the last local paper in Northern Florida to have their own printing press. Which came with some perks for the Putnam County paper.
“Being able to create our own deadlines for the news,” added Moates.
Now the reason why the newspaper feels that it’s time to start outsourcing for their printing needs revolves around the high cost and maintenance that comes with the printing press.
“Anytime we have something go down on the press, we actually had to have it, you know, parts made for it," Moates said. "The people that have the knowledge and the skill set to repair and maintain the presses ... there's not that many of them anymore.“
The newspaper will now be printed out of Callahan and with the paper only coming out with three editions a week, readers can access their articles timely online as they wait for the printed newspapers to be mailed out. A common theme with other local papers in our area according to Moates.
"All across the country, you'll see that printing presses are going to be consolidated, the printing process will be consolidated into locations, just because the print the presses are, are so you know, they have so much age on them now," she mentioned.
Although this will cause some employees to be laid off, Moates say there are other positives that come with this change.
“This will make a stronger, this will make us a better product we'll have, we'll have more color capabilities on all of the news on all the pages that we didn't have here, from our press,” Moates said.
Now the printing press in Palatka will be taken apart and its parts will be sent out to fix other presses around the nation.
The Palatka Daily News also adds that retiring the current printing press was already in the works prior to the new owners purchasing the paper in 2024.