DURBAN - IT’S all systems go for the massive printing of matric results on Thursday with the Independent Media production division, Insights Publishing, ready to publish the results for each of its daily newspapers.
This was as the Department of Basic Education (DBE) revealed that it would make matric results available to all media houses.
The division expects to print close to a million copies of its titles, a figure the production team knows all too well.
Craig Govender, group commercial manager, said producing the paper was guided by an embargo applicable to all media companies that printed results.
“Creating the production for the printing could not be random. Everything is governed by the embargo from the Department of Basic Education. So, there cannot be publishing of anything outside of the rules of the department when they give those rules.
“What it does is give us guidance for the times of productions in terms of the preparation for that day. Prior to that our IT department receives files from the DBE, do a test on the system, ensuring that everything works and transmission is good,” said Govender.
“We have to work with the editorial team which gives out a template of the newspapers’ structure. From there we work around the advertising space, and make metal plates similar to the paper page with the three-colour separation of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
“Then it goes through the system, intrinsically placing the colours on each and every page. At the end of the day we have to produce a 48-page print supplement, which will go across our titles, and still produce the normal paper on top of the new issue of matric results. It leaves needing to print close to a million copies of our newspapers.”
Govender said around this time there was more of a workload which meant extra hands to help with the production.
“The work is very technical, intense and deadline-driven. And for that we need to have all the crews on site from morning until late afternoon to make sure that the printing is safely coordinated and executed.”
Group subscriptions manager Livingstone Pillay, who has been involved with the publishing of matric results for 40 years, described the printing of the result as a tradition.
“For me the matric results can be likened to a major event on the calendar, such as the comrades marathon or the Durban July.”
Vincent Raghunath, production manager, said the team was ecstatic that it could get on with arguably the most thrilling time for publishing.
“I have been with the company for 39 of the 49 years since the production of the paper began. And in our early years we would get overly excited about the results as they came before Christmas,” Raghunath said.
“It stayed like that even when the results were scheduled for just after the new year. So, it was a bit of a shock when the decision not to publish was made. Now that we have the publishing back in place, we are beyond excited.”
Daily News