Nation Media was thrown into panic last evening when its new printer malfunctioned and almost stalled the production of Friday’s newspaper.
So serious was the problem that the company’s top management, led by the new chief executive officer Joe Muganda and the Editor-in-Chief Tom Mshindi had to rush to the Mavoko-based printing plant at night.
A source at Nation Media Group’s editorial department told Business Today that the “technical hitch” was so major that they almost approached their competition, Standard Group, for printing of today’s editions of Taifa Leo, Daily Nation and Business Daily.
Nation Media was forced to take the Friday paper to the market without four pages. This is how the opinion page looks like – from pg 12 the pagination jumps to 15.
Standard Group has one of the most modern printing plants in the East African region, which is said to be fully automated and less prone to hitches. “It was a desperate situation. And because one of the affected pages was a full page advertisement, the company thought it would be a big loss,” said the source.
It is understood that after the hitch, the press had to be stopped as the four pages totally failed to be outputted. Today’s edition did not have four pages – opinion and letters, which appear on page 13 and 14 and page 55 and 56 that accommodate mostly classified ads.
Following the breakdown, print order had to be cut by almost half. Vendors who spoke to Business Today said the Friday Nation delayed reaching the market, a move that had impacted negatively on their sales. The Coast Edition, which is normally transported overnight by road, was airlifted this morning from Nairobi.
Late arrival to the market is likely to hurt sales. On his Facebook account, Mr Mshindi has apologised to the paper’s readers and advertisers.
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