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Info on industry deaths in 2021 sought Guest Column:
Fund local journalism to help communities
By Dean Ridings, CEO, America’s Newspapers
Arkansas Press Association
Publisher Weekly Vol. 16 | No.47 | Wednesday, December 2, 2021 | Serving Press and State Since 1873
All-female press room runs smoothly in Forrest City
(From left) Alice McCollum, Dusty McCollum and Teresa McCrary in the pressroom at the Times-Herald in Forrest City.
It’s increasingly rare to find newspapers that still use old-school printing presses. Or even rarer, women press operators. But in Forrest City, a behemoth of an old printing press is wholly operated by three women: Teresa McCrary, Dusty McCollum and Alice McCollum. Rosie the Riveter would be proud. “Not a lot of newspapers in major cities are running presses anymore,” said Tamara Johnson, editor and publisher of the Times-Herald in Forrest City, which is the state’s only Monday through Friday afternoon newspaper, plus the Courier-
Index in Marianna and a TMC advertiser. “And I would bet you there aren’t too many press crews that are all-female anywhere.” The Times-Herald is in its 151st year, and the current printing press has been operating more than a third of that time. “Ours is an old Goss web press, and it’s probably 60 years old,” Johnson said. “We run it pretty hard every week. And they baby that thing to keep us going.” Teresa McCrary was the first to join the press staff, in 2004. She’d taken a course in appliance repair from the local technical college, and was working in Memphis
when her former instructor called. “The teacher asked, ‘Do you want to do some maintenance at the paper?’ I said ‘Sure’,” McCrary said, adding with a laugh, “Of course, it was really more than just maintenance.” Running the press is a tough, physical job that requires precision. “There’s a lot to it because on our press you have to line our colors up manually—magenta, cyan, yellow and black. You have to move things, and colors can move side to side or up and down. There’s a lot of little tricks you learn over the years,” McCrary said. Continued on Page 2