As The North York Mirror has progressed over the past half-century, the printing presses on which the paper is produced have evolved in leaps and bounds as well.
The newspaper started out as a small operation serving the Don Mills community. The Don Mills Mirror, as it was known at the time, has undergone several changes including, in the mid-1970s, quickly adapting to what was the latest trend, switching from rotary presses to offset presses, in which ink is applied to newsprint from metal plates.
"Because offset was a relatively new process at the time, we were one of the first papers in Toronto to go to offset printing," said Peter Marsh, vice-president of Production for The Mirror's parent company, Metroland Media Group Limited. "It was really cutting-edge back then, and we were quick to get involved in it."
At the time, the paper was predominantly black and white, but new technological advances helped the company forge ahead into the vast world of colour printing in the late 1970s. Process colour, which allowed for multiple ink tones to be used at once, made the publication of colour photos possible. Given that the presses used only a few colours of ink - usually cyan, magenta and yellow in addition to the usual black - that process was time-consuming and labour-intensive.
"We used special separations with craftspeople who were able to separate the four colours on top of each other," Marsh said. "It was a very specific craft and there weren't a lot of people who had the training or the knowledge to do it right."
The time required to do the difficult separations, which ensured the colours came out looking natural, meant that extra preparation time had to be factored in when producing the newspaper.
"If you were going to run a colour picture, you'd have to predetermine the picture about a week ahead of time," Marsh said. "These days, the new technology just spits it out."
Things were complicated further as advertiser demand for the paper grew. The Mirror went from being a weekly publication to one that came out two, then three times a week, all due to ad revenues that were constantly increasing.
"Sometimes, an advertiser wanted to have a flyer go out on a certain day when we weren't publishing and we'd have to create a paper to go around it," Marsh said.
The Mirror became an ingrained part of the community, with several other start-up newspapers failing to gain traction in the ever-growing North York community.
As demand for The Mirror and other Metroland publications grew, the company welcomed a new, larger printing press was built in 2002 at 10 Tempo Ave., next door to the current Mirror offices, to deal with the task of putting out hundreds of pages of copy every week. The new press is far more automated than the older models, a necessity in the modern age.
With information now passed along electronically, the new presses can turn out 100,000 papers in about two hours, a far cry from the early days.
Marsh said the difference between the early days of The Mirror's printing presses and its current operations are striking, but he said he is proud the company has been able to embrace change while maintaining its place of prominence in the community.
"It's pretty neat that The North York Mirror has lasted 50 years as a part of the community," he said. "We just have to stay on top of changes in the industry and we'll last 50 more."