La Sicilia Press

This week famed TV and print journalist Maria Torrisi led our Journalism and Documentary students on a guided tour of the printing facility for the regional daily newspaper La Sicilia. In addition to the 700,000 copies of La Sicilia produced here daily, the facility also prints national papers like Il sole 24 Ore, La Repubblica, and Tutto Sport.

These large containers hold yellow, red , blue, and black inks. The black ink container is the largest, as it is used for the newspaper's typeface. The primary color inks are mixed to produce a variety of shades used in color photographs and graphics displayed in the paper.

This enormous press holds an army of rotating cylinders. After a laser ray has etched the day's news onto a sheet of aluminum, the sheet is wrapped around these cylinders. Ink is applied to the aluminum etching and the spinning cylinders are pressed against kilometers of newspaper.

Literally hundreds of kilometers of paper. Per day, the facility uses about 35 rolls of recycled newspaper, pictured below. The paper is imported from Russia, France, and Nordic countries.

After the paper is pressed, it is cut and folded, on the machine pictured below.

Great tour! Thanks Maria Torrisi!