Thousands of words have been written about the problems at manroland– and that’s even before the company sought insolvency protection in a German court.

It’s sad, but it is not the end, any more that it was when then US-headquartered Goss went into Chapter 11.

And what is saddest is that for whatever reason, manroland took so long to put its house in order that someone else will now do it instead.

In Australia, manroland presses are at the pinnacle of print production for all three newspaper groups, and prominent in South East Asia and in the inventories of commercial web printers. So successful has the two-year-old ANZ subsidiary been that chairman Gerd Finkbeiner

 clearly with other things on his mind – singled out its “really outstanding” performance for special praise.

One customer – who is behind the ‘Save manroland’ campaign, but prefers to remain anonymous – is still in awe of performance and points to the bucketloads of money, the pressmaker’s customers have made from their acquisitions. “Help by paying your bills, ordering parts, writing to board members... or better still, order a new press,” he urges.

But despite the worldwide success in web presses, other areas have been a drag.

It’s worth recording the extent to which manroland has been a champion of print self-interest maybe, but a cause few others have put as much into. If they hadn’t cancelled it (and if we hadn’t got our November issue out sooner) this is the message they would have trumpeted.



Which prompts me to mention the reacquaintance I have been making with old friends: Box upon box of books, stored before the renovation before last have found a home on new shelving, installed now that not only the builders, but also the last house guests from the wedding of the elder of my two daughters last month, have left.

A copy of Peter Carey’s ‘Oscar and Lucinda’ – which I also have out of the library at the moment – is among them, and Carey’s Miss Leplastrier is correct... there is in travelling north, “a problem with mould”.

Most noticeable, however, is the degree to which book production has improved; the 290-page Vantage edition the library bought a couple of years ago infinitely easier to read than the 512-page one published in 1988.

Encouraging therefore that we have learned something over the years about the basics of what reading a printed page is all about. And interesting that among the clearest of all the many tomes was a rebound volume in French, ‘Tartarin sur Les Alpes’ published in Paris in 1888, and passed on and inscribed by a relative of my wife’s in 1906.



So what was that brown funk ‘The Australian’ got itself into a few weeks back all about?

Yes, ‘gold’ is what the publicists called it, marking the launch of the paper’s online premium content – though it could equally have been something to do with the teaser ads for American Express which started on the front page and led inside. Or the death of Joe Frazier, perhaps?

No need to be picky and point out that you can’t print gold with CMYK. Let’s just say the heavy tint did nothing to enhance readability.

Time as well to give credit where it’s due: A few weeks back I wrote online that it was depressing that – barring technology improvements in consumables – printing of the local metro daily ‘Courier-Mail’ was unlikely to get better. By which I meant the was precious little hope of new kit solely to lift print quality in a market in which Murdoch titles have a monopoly.

Well it has. Colour pictures particularly are noticeably improved, at least on some webs from the Murrarie presses, so congratulations to those concerned.

The best quality here is still free, however. My hinterland local, APN’s ‘Noosa News’ is both superbly printed on improved newsprint – down the road from me at Yandina – and considerately stitched to ensure flyaway pages are not a problem in this beautiful part of the world.

Talking of Fairfax... Alas poor John B: The month saw the departure of John Brehmer Fairfax from the Fairfax Media share register, ‘Sloop John B.’ slinging his hook, so to speak.

Fairfax sold out of the business which still bears the family name overnight on November 10 and as expected, son Nicholas has since resigned from the board.

The patriarch of a once-proud dynasty must rue the day he sold his successful Rural Press business – itself rescued from the pickings of young Warwick’s foray – as the savage loss is crystallised.

Sold for an estimated $193 million, the shares were among those acquired as part of a merger deal which furnished $114 million in cash and about 216 million Fairfax shares, then worth $4.72 apiece.



In common with others, GXpress has been trying to get a handle on what kind of organisation News Limited is going to be, not that it’s headed by someone who is less news than entertainment.

Accordingly, we’re grateful to Nick Leys, media diarist at ‘The Australian’ for the story of how Kim Williams came into the Holt Street headquarters to meet editors – and got stuck in the lift.

“Every few minutes, someone checked on him via the intercom, and Diary understands that his language and tone indicated he might not always be the urbane type we imagined,” he writes.



A blast from my past, the Kent Messenger Group  – to which I sold my family’s newspapers before heading here in 1987 – was in the news in a couple of scores while I was in Vienna for Ifra... and both send a message that it may be better to own nothing.

The UK regional publisher has become the first user of DTI’s cloud-based SaaS publishing systems service, a move which follows them having to scrap their highly-customised Goss Visa/Colorliner press after outsourcing printing to Trinity Mirror.

Latest news is that the UK competition watchdog has stamped on their plans to buy two newspapers in the area, one of which was a local competitor of mine in past days. Now the current owner, Northcliffe is likely to shut the titles... which will also be a lower-cost option for KM than buying them.

DTI’s David Page – who once worked for the Canterbury ‘Kentish Gazette’, now also a KM title – and I are watching developments with interest!