Designing the newspapers of far-away lands

Houghton, Michigan is located in the Northwest corner of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It is a picturesque city whose three predominant features are Michigan Technological University, the distinct Portage Lake Lift Bridge and never-ending winters that average more than 200 inches of snow. Marquette, Michigan is in the central part of the U.P. It is the largest city and unofficial capital of the Upper Peninsula. With Northern Michigan University, a vibrant downtown and nature all around, it is one of this region's hidden gems. Alpena, Michigan is in the Lower Peninsula, but in the Northeast section, far away from the hustle and bustle of lower Michigan, as well as the well-traveled Northwest part. Located on the shores of Lake Huron, Alpena glistens as a regional port city and carries with it an alluring summer coastal vibe. None of these cities are close — Houghton takes nearly 10 hours to get from here by car. Marquette is about eight and Alpena five. What do they have in common? They are locations whose daily newspapers are being designed right here in Northwest Ohio. Last week marked my sixth anniversary of living in Ohio, me overseeing The Advertiser-Tribune in Tiffin for six years, The Courier in Findlay and Review Times in Fostoria for five and the Sandusky Register and Norwalk Reflector for three. One of my favorite projects during this time is how we've built our page design hub. This is the group that takes the stories and photos that are compiled by our reporters and editors and uses them to build newspaper pages. In many newspapers, those same editors and reporters design the paper, building pages in between interviews, stories and editing. What we did — first with the five papers I oversee — was create a group of people whose sole focus it was to design pages. It was a major newsroom paradigm shift, but one that allowed our journalists and editors to focus more of their time on producing content. In creating specialists who design pages every day, we are able to produce pages more consistently and efficiently. In the past months, we've added to our group, taking on the pages for the Houghton Mining Gazette, the Marquette Mining Journal (how about those names) and my hometown paper, The Alpena News. These papers are all owned by our company, and thanks to some technology and good communication on all sides, we are able to produce good news pages for these communities. To make this all happen, we have partnered with a news technology company whose automated page design system makes the seemingly impossible be possible. When our design staff begins a shift each day, they are very likely to be designing pages for The Courier in Findlay, and, say, the Marquette Mining Journal. In a world where many in the newspaper industry remember all pages being crafted by hand in the era before computers took over, effectively building papers for publications not even in our state is looked at with amazement. I am thankful for our team, namely design hub manager Mason Brown, who has built a solid group capable of delivering news — literally — across the country. Even our Northwest Ohio team is spread out geographically, with design team members in both Findlay and Sandusky. We plan to add more papers into our design hub in the coming time. It's another thing I look at in awe. You won't find us bemoaning the newspaper industry. Instead, we look to the things we are doing that are cool and innovative — whether it is us printing 25 different newspaper titles per week, us being able to provide digital marketing solutions to companies anytime, anywhere or the creation of this design hub. I'm enjoying learning more about places like Houghton and Marquette, and rekindling my love for the town I grew up in — Alpena. The newspaper industry has survived hundreds of years on reinventing itself and finding new ways to get news out. This is just another example of why it is still a fulfilling vocation for so many of us. Jeremy Speer is the publisher of The Courier, Findlay, the Sandusky Register, The Advertiser-Tribune, Tiffin, the Norwalk Reflector and Review Times, Fostoria. He can be reached at jeremyspeer@thecourier.com.