LW Weekly Production Cycle
LW Weekly staff often receives the same questions over and over again: Why is my picture not on the color page? Why are some clubs always in the newspaper? Why can't this article fit? Just add one extra page! Why can't I submit the information after the deadline?
Newspaper production is a complicated and detailed process. The purpose of the LW Weekly production cycle infographic below is to give you an overview of the process specific to the Leisure World newspaper and hopefully answer some questions. STEP
1 Content Gathering
Residents, LW clubs, GRF departments and advertisers provide LW Weekly staff with content including articles, photos, event reports, community schedules, and classified and display ads.
The deadline for submissions is Thursday. Content is also provided by LW Weekly editors, who cover events and shoot photos.
All submissions are edited to comply with Associated Press style for grammar, punctuation and spelling and to ensure copy is aligned with GRF policies.
STEP
2 Page Layout & Design
After editors have formatted content, a newspaper dummy, or mock-up, of that week’s paper is created. The size of the paper is determined by a 60/40 ratio of ads to editorial content. Ad space is mapped out in the dummy, and the editorial space is apportioned by section—Arts & Leisure, Health, Community, Perspectives, Religion, and Government—and given to specific editors, who build their sec tions with processed copy and art.
STEP
3 Production
The production team processes photos and designs advertisements. All art must be processed per exact specifications for the best print quality. For example, photos must be 300 dpi to ensure sharp reproduction.
On Tuesdays, classified ads are placed and new pages are proofed by at least 3 staffers, who then file them with the production team.
Pages must be turned in by noon on Tuesdays.
STEP
4 Pre-Press & Printing
Once editors file their sections, the production team assembles editorial pages, display and clas- sified ads, and game pages into one print-ready digital file. This is sent to an off-site facility for offset printing and folding on Wednesday morning. The paper is printed using the CMYK color system that relies on layered dots of color (cyan, magenta, yellow and key-black) to produce a high-quality print job.
Page counts must be in multiples of four.
STEP
5 Delivery & Distribution
The printer delivers 7,500 folded LW Weekly issues to the Amphitheater every Wednesday for distri- bution by Eagle Rock Services, an external newspaper distributor that (mostly) employs LW residents as carriers.
The papers are delivered to residents’ front doors on Wednesdays, although by contract, the distributor has until 10 a.m., Thursday, to complete the weekly delivery.
LW Weekly's official print date is Thursday.
STEP
6 Digital Conversion to www.lwweekly.com
The LW Weekly is also available online. Once all the pages of an edition are converted to PDF format, the file is split into sec tions and sent to Tecnavia to be uploaded to www.lwweekly .com , providing an interactive version of the paper. A PDF version is also uploaded to the LW website at lwsb.com. All the URL links within the issue have to be manually converted by production staff to be accessible to readers directly from the website.
STEP
7 Conversion to VIE (Visually Impaired Edition) Format
Once pages have been filed for the print edition, LW Weekly editors convert their assigned sections to a Visually Impaired Edition (VIE) for mat. The production team uploads the VIE edition onto the lwsb.com
website for vision- and hearing-impaired residents. The service is also available at lwweekly.com. Each online version of the LW Weekly can also be translated into many languages.
