This past week, rumors began to circulate when clients of the Santa Barbara News-Press’s Goleta printing plant to print their jobs were told that the press was out of commission. Some said they’d heard it might be permanent.
Dave Mason, managing director of the newspaper, explained that the paper ran stories on the front page explaining the power problems at the plant. The paper stated that the suspension was only temporary, and they would switch to an electronic version of their daily newspaper in the interim.
A printing press is a behemoth of a machine that uses tremendous amounts of power — as much as 480 volts at 800 amps, said one operator of a press in California. It’s unknown if the rumble of the press shook the power supply apart or if it’s the power supplied to the building that’s affected, but any change at the paper has caused rumors to circulate, ever since “The News-Press Mess” started an outflow of personnel in 2006.
Most recently, the paper’s staff joined the printing press at its Goleta location on South Kellogg Avenue in April, leaving the iconic building on De la Guerra Plaza in Santa Barbara that the newspaper had occupied since 1922. In October 2022 the News-Press ended home deliveries of its paper by carrier service and switched to same-day mail service, citing “labor shortages, higher gas prices, and other current economic challenges.”
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