By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
This is being written on a rainy day. Such days are always hell for us. Before the pandemic when we haven’t yet scaled down content, our reporters on the field had to find ways to get the news come hell or high water. They had to be battle ready. Proper boots with matching rain coats and pants had to be always handy.
The problems have been proportionately reduced with our greatly scaled down content. You could say we got victimized by reality. We had to surrender to cost-cutting dictates in order to be able to see the next day. From the coverage of events to the tail end of the production line, the printing process. For a lot of readers have shifted to the social media platforms whose readers have proliferated of late. Proper spelling and grammar be damned—much less the truth. As somebody commented, only the oldies now are buying the dailies and our products, the local weeklies.
Our medium is newsprint that loves to suck in moisture from the atmosphere. The paper becomes soft making it so difficult for the printing machines to pick up. Errors inadvertently happen when the sheets are pushed into the presses to be printed on. They should hit the same spot every time but because there is no more precision, that does not happen.
So, double impressions, smudges, or blurred images. In short, a lot of spoilage destined to the fire place or the garbage bin. Waste of money.
And because of their high moisture content the ability of the ink to stick to the paper is compromised resulting in low quality prints devoid of sharpness.
Since we reached this point we would still be considered lucky. At least if there was current we were able to print. At times, there is no electricity due to transformers that burst, electric posts that got toppled down, or broken lines caused by trees that fell or hit by their branches. Or it would be fluctuating, thus, a bumpy ride, at best.
After a lot of struggle to obtain acceptable printed materials, the papers are then transported. In the process, they can get wet which would mean total loss. At least the badly printed ones can still be used to wrap galongggong, tilapia or tinapa at the fish market. But wet newspapers? Good for nothing.
It was a blessing we always had to face such problems which meant we were always able to print on account of timely brinkmanship. Others often failed to come up with their copies when the supply of their paper never arrived due to floods and other transportation challenges.**
