Company changes with changing world
Today is a historic day at The Enterprise. Our publisher, John E. Newhouse II, announced that The Beaumont Enterprise will no longer be printed in Beaumont. It’s sad because some of our colleagues no longer work here. It’s important because it marks the end of one era and the beginning of another.
It was an economic decision, and a wise one, but the sentimental old-style paper-and-ink journalists among us can’t help but be saddened a bit by the action.
The press at The Enterprise is 34 years old – older than many of our employees, particularly those in the newsroom. It hasn’t run since Hurricane Ike struck. It can’t really be fixed, but it COULD be replaced, at a cost estimated at more than $30 million.
It doesn’t take someone with an MBA to realize the impracticality of that in today’s business climate, with a sister paper in Houston that is perfectly capable of printing anything The Enterprise needs printing. In fact, the Houston plant has published some Enterprise products for about a year. Another positive aspect is that the decision might well mean that readers and advertisers will be able to enjoy a product with more color on its pages.
So, when groups come to tour The Enterprise now, at least for the time being, I might still be able to show them the pressroom and tell them about how newspapers are produced. I just won’t be able to show them where the newspapers are actually produced.
Through the years, I have told many visitors to The Enterprise that the power and the location of the press in our historic building mean that, when the press ran, you could literally feel it in the slightly pulsating vibration of the building.
I have, more than once, described it as being like the heartbeat of our organization. Now that heartbeat might have been stilled, but fortunately the transplant has been successful and the patient expects to continue to thrive.
It was an economic decision, and a wise one, but the sentimental old-style paper-and-ink journalists among us can’t help but be saddened a bit by the action.
The press at The Enterprise is 34 years old – older than many of our employees, particularly those in the newsroom. It hasn’t run since Hurricane Ike struck. It can’t really be fixed, but it COULD be replaced, at a cost estimated at more than $30 million.
It doesn’t take someone with an MBA to realize the impracticality of that in today’s business climate, with a sister paper in Houston that is perfectly capable of printing anything The Enterprise needs printing. In fact, the Houston plant has published some Enterprise products for about a year. Another positive aspect is that the decision might well mean that readers and advertisers will be able to enjoy a product with more color on its pages.
So, when groups come to tour The Enterprise now, at least for the time being, I might still be able to show them the pressroom and tell them about how newspapers are produced. I just won’t be able to show them where the newspapers are actually produced.
Through the years, I have told many visitors to The Enterprise that the power and the location of the press in our historic building mean that, when the press ran, you could literally feel it in the slightly pulsating vibration of the building.
I have, more than once, described it as being like the heartbeat of our organization. Now that heartbeat might have been stilled, but fortunately the transplant has been successful and the patient expects to continue to thrive.
posted by Sheila Friedeck at 4:49 PM
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