San Francisco Chronicle to upgrade print quality
Starting Monday, the San Francisco Chronicle will reportedly become the first newspaper in the U.S. to print on “high-quality glossy paper.”
We say “reportedly” because stories differ.
The Associated Press reports:
The glossy paper will be used on the Chronicle’s front page as well as the first page of most other sections. It will also show up on some pages inside the newspaper.
That story is posted at the Huffington Post as well as the Chronicle’s own web site.
We’ve not been able to find a Chronicle story that was reportedly published a week or two ago, nor could we find an online version of the brief publisher’s note the Chronicle ran on Wednesday’s page one (at the lower left of that page, above). Here’s a closer look, though:
As you can see, there are multiple references to “high-gloss paper” and a promise of “photographs, graphics and advertisements of exceptional clarity and brightness.”
So why are we belaboring the point? Because Editor & Publisher’s Jim Rosenberg seems to take issue with these stories.
Rosenberg reports:
When Transcontinental begins using a higher-quality stock to print page one and section fronts for the San Francisco Chronicle next week, the paper will not be the glossy stock suggested in earlier reports.
The upgrade, first mentioned in an Oct. 27 story by Chronicle staff writer David R. Baker, will be to supercalendered paper. A groundwood-grade sheet that is smoother than ordinary newsprint but only somewhat glossier, it is used by some Sunday supplements, other publications, mass-market catalogs and some freestanding inserts. It will not be the paper that readers associate with glossy magazines and high-end catalogs.
Read Rosenberg’s E&P report here.
Find the AP story here.
November 5th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
The Park City Record in Park City, Utah does a similar thing. Their cover is on a brighter, whiter, glossier paper than the rest of the section. But yeah, it’s not as glossy as a magazine, it’s more like your standard grocery store insert. It looks nice, though.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
Glad to hear that the Chron is spending the extra money they found laying around. I think readers and advertisers would rather have an extra reporter, designer or copy editor helping to give that paper a sheen not found in “smoother” paper.