Fix in the works for Havre Daily News press

Editor’s note: This version has been updated to reflect Havre Daily News will be online only Tuesday’s and Thursdays until the paper’s press is again running.

While the latest problems have again kept the Havre Daily News from publishing printed copies the last few days, and will limit printed copies for a week or two, Publisher Don Thoma said the light at the end of the tunnel seems to be near.

“It’s been just one thing after another,” Thoma added.

He said a fix for the latest problem, a glitch in the computerized system that makes the plates for the press used by the Daily, is in the works, and the paper is, once again, temporarily printing offsite, this time in an arrangement with The Daily Interlake in Kalispell.

Due to the expense, the owners decided to only print Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and the paper will be online-only Tuesdays and Thursdays until the press is operational again.

Thoma thanked everyone for their patience and assistance over the last 15 months.

“I have to thank our readers for sticking with us while we got things fixed and for all the help we’ve had getting things to work,” he said.

He added that, with the latest upgrade, the hope is the problems will be resolved and the paper “will be up and running soon and even better than before.”

The problems started in the spring of 2022 when the unit on the press that folds and cuts the papers as they are printed broke. That was temporarily fixed, but broke again before the permanent replacement unit could be brought in.

That led to Havre Daily making arrangements, at times with the Helena Independent record and also with the Livingston Enterprise when illness kept the Helena paper from printing the daily, to get the paper printed offsite then brought to Havre.

Once that was done, the paper printed in Havre for several months. But then, a press operator who had just joined the paper fell ill in March and spent a couple of weeks in the hospital and recovery, leaving no one to operate the press.

Keith Hanson, who owns and operates the Blaine County Journal-News-Opinion with his wife, Keri, and is a former Havre Daily press operator, stepped in and helped out some at that point, with the Daily going online only some days and printing offsite some days as well.

Things got back to normal for a while, until the new press operator suddenly quit and took another job, leaving Havre Daily without an operator again, making some online editions and out-of-town printing required again.

Havre Daily had a temporary arrangement with the Bozeman Daily Chronicle for that work.

Then former Havre Daily press operator Derek Vaughn, who works for Hill County Printing, stepped in to help out, running the press and training new operators in the press room.

But, almost immediately, the problem with the computerized platemaker, known as computer-to-press or CTP, cropped up, leading to an online edition.

The manufacturer of the CTP, Kodak, did some remote work to get it going again, letting the Havre Daily be printed locally again for a while, with Vaughn again helping out. A Kodak technician also came to do some work on the platemaker, and Havre Daily started the process for an upgrade.

But, this week, the platemaker stopped working entirely, leading to Monday and Tuesday’s online papers and the offsite printing in Kalispell.

But, Thoma said, an upgrade from Kodak to get the platemaker working again is in the works, and the paper should be able to be printed in Kalispell Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and brought in until that is complete, hopefully in a couple of weeks.

Kodak is expediting the process to get the CTP running again as soon as possible, he added.

“I gotta thank the readers, and everyone who’s helped,” he said, thanking Vaughn and Hanson for their work as well as the staff of the paper and the carriers who have been working around the problems.

“It’s been a perfect storm of things going wrong,” Thoma added.

He also thanked the other papers that have helped out with printing, noting that those papers have had problems with illness and staff shortages, and now summer vacations, too.

He said the other papers have done their best to help out if they could.

“There’s kind of a camaraderie in the newspaper business,” Thoma said.