Landmark in digital printing as Daily Mail goes live in New York

High-speed printing of newspapers at full size, in full color and at a quality level that is indistinguishable from the original litho version has long been a goal of digital press manufacturers. In New York on February 2 Screen’s Truepress Jet520 went live with the printing of the Daily Mail for the North American market.

The Screen digital newspaper press has been purchased by UK-based company Newsworld; the machine in New York is the first installation in a roll-out planned to cover four sites by the end of 2009. In the US, the machine is being operated on Newsworld’s behalf by Alphagraphics, close to New York’s Newark airport.

Screen’s European president Brian Forsdike expressed his pleasure at seeing more than two years of planning come to fruition: ‘Printing newspapers on the Truepress Jet520 was identified as a big opportunity during the machine’s development cycle. Once we saw the fantastic quality we could then achieve at 128m per minute we knew it was only a matter of time before somebody recognized the machine’s potential for this application. We are delighted to be working with Newsworld on this ground breaking project and hope that this will be the first of many installations.’

Brian Forsdike was also keen to compliment Hunkeler, supplier of the finishing equipment, on its support: ‘Hunkeler has shown great commitment to this installation and we would like to thank all of its engineers, and those of its US distributor Standard Finishing for sharing our enthusiasm to make this work.’

During the first few weeks of production, Newsworld will focus on the printing of the US edition of the Daily Mail. By the end of March the number of titles will have increased significantly and the machine will be running at near full capacity. Newsworld’s chief executive David Renouf was in New York to see the first few days of production: ‘Seeing that first copy come off the press was a fantastic moment, everybody involved has invested a great deal in making this happen and we all feel that this is just the start of a revolution in the way that newspapers are produced.’ Renouf also thanked the Daily Mail for their belief in the project, adding that ‘the Daily Mail is now available in New York on the same day as publication in the UK for the first time in the newspaper’s history.’

With newspapers now being added to direct mail, transactional printing, book production and general print on demand, Screen’s Truepress Jet520 is demonstrating itself to be a truly flexible digital press.

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