When most people start their day, the Collegiate Times has already appeared in the red boxes around campus.
Before it is snatched up and carried to class, before the sudoku is completed, erased and filled in again, your CT has already been through a journey.
It has been smashed with four different ink layers, twisted into a perfect fold, dropped onto a conveyor belt and carried up and around a building before dropping into the hands of a mailroom employee. Then, it is loaded onto a truck and driven down a curvy mountain road, down US 460 all the way to Blacksburg.
The paper makes its way to the mail room after a trip around the building. Photo by Luke Mason
When the CT staff finishes the paper – the staff must meet an 11 p.m. deadline – each night, it sends the final documents to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in Bluefield, W. Va.
Bluefield has been printing the CT for the past three years. The press churns away in the wee hours of the morning behind dirty gray wall that shields it from a dimly lit, empty newsroom.
After receiving the documents for the paper, Bluefield’s employees create “plates” for the paper in a dark room with a yellow glow. The plates will eventually tell the press where to dump ink.
The paper receives runs of cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink on the press, comprising CMYK color.
It then drops onto a conveyor belt that carries it up toward the ceiling, makes a right turn near the giant paper rolls stacked in a warehouse, and ends up in the mailroom. Advertisement inserts are stuffed in and the paper is loaded into trucks.
The trucks make the hour-long drive to Blacksburg. Bluefield, much like the CT staff is on a strict deadline. They aim to get the paper on the press by 2 a.m. and in the trucks by 3:30 a.m.
Boxes are first filled at about 5 a.m. and – ideally – the last boxes are stuffed before the campus students, faculty and staff populate the campus for the first 8 a.m. classes.
Any deviation from this strict regimen usually leads to the papers being delivered too late for the early birds to grab a copy.
These photos were taken in the early morning hours of Friday, April 23, as the CT staff made its annual trek to Bluefield after sending the paper.
Click Here To View Photos from the Trip.
- Zach Crizer, NRV News Editor
