A Day at Sound Publishing

See where The Clipper Gets Printed Every Three Weeks

Stapled Magazines with fresh inserts being moved to be organized and prepared for shipment. During the holiday seasons these machines are in overdrive pumping out inserts 24/7.

The Clipper took a trip to visit Sound Publishing. Sound Publishing Inc. is known as the largest news organization in Washington. Founded in 1987, they publish a variety of newspapers including The Daily Herald.

The trip began as any other trip to a publisher, with drawing pictures with a partner. Besides the fun and games that they began with for team building. Continue on through the halls as room after room passed by.

Accounting, design, and other management team sat upstairs working on the next piece of work to be sent down stairs where the real magic happens.

Once down the stairs, a warehouse opens up with rolls of papers the size of dump truck wheels stacked to the ceiling and pallets of newspapers and magazines everywhere and employees hard at work.

First came the inserter machine, then the paper cutter, the packager, and on to visit with the proof team who makes sure all the work is ready for production. Then finally around the corner opened up the main machine, the three- story-tall printing press.

This newspaper beast had paper going left, right, up and down, as well as every direction in between, with a skilled team of workers not missing a beat making sure every paper was coming out in line. This machine pumping out up to 20,000 papers an hour.

After finishing up in the main room, the team headed around the back to see how the machine as loaded as well as visit the loading area where the finished product of the prints was loaded up and then sent off for the reader.

After back tracking through the plant, past the towers of papers, and past the gigantic ink drums, the journey ended where it had started, outside the front doors.

**All photos taken by Katie Webber and Michael Rhodes