Still rolling: The people keeping print alive

Keeping watch on every page, every night

Sixty-year-old Abdul Razak joined Singapore Press Holdings’ pre-press team over 3½ decades ago, as a film stripper.

That was his designation, and his work was to scan and enhance the pictures, as well as manually create the advertisement layout so that they would appear well in the paper. He still does that – though with some changes in the processes – along with a lot more, as a senior pre-press specialist now.

The pre-press team prepares and ensures that all elements and components of the digital files of the next day’s paper, which are sent from the newsroom, are complete and final for printing.

Starting work each evening at 5.30pm, he’ll be at his desk for the next few hours, watching eagle-eyed the flow of text and visuals transmitted from the newsroom to ensure that every word, image and advertisement is in its proper place.

At the end of a shift, his eyes and back will be sore. But he still enjoys his job.

“We have to be ready to receive a new page. There will be new editorial content to look out for, there will be a new photo to enhance. I have to try not to make a mistake. And I must complete everything in a short while. I enjoy that,” he says.

His production manager, Ms Sumithy Kamalakaran, 56, who has been with the department for more than three decades, is equally enthusiastic.

When she joined the company as an assistant graphic technician, the pre-press team numbered over a hundred people working on one floor at Times House in Kim Seng Road.

In those days, there were no digital files. Instead, newspapers were primarily printed using letterpress technology. This process involved applying ink to a raised surface, often made of metal or lead and composed of individual pieces of type set by hand, which was then pressed onto paper.

She remembers the occasional late night visits from senior editors of the paper, including the editor himself, to approve the final layout before it was set for print.

Last-minute changes were nerve-racking, given the delays they could cause. But there was a sense of purpose and camaraderie in working to deliver the national newspaper on time, without any errors or printing glitches.

“Even today, we have our morning meeting at 9am where we look at the printed newspaper and see if the photos, colours, layouts, advertisements, obituaries, everything is in place,” she says. 

Technology has certainly paved the way to eliminate some of the manual processes, making their job easier.

Before there were digital files, four films had to be made of every page and faxed to the print centre. “So if you had a 100-page paper, that meant 400 films. Now it is all done over the computer,” says Mr Razak, smiling.

But they still have much to do. The pre-press team of 63 is responsible for verifying and checking all relevant content before typesetting and releasing it for print, assisting in the work process to archive publications – and more.

Will technology and artificial intelligence drastically change that?

“I don’t know,” says Mr Razak. “As long as I am healthy, I hope I will get to do the work I do.”

Powering the presses that shape Singapore

When most of Singapore has gone to bed is when SPH Media’s Print Centre at 2 Jurong Port Road comes alive.

One of the largest printing plants in the Asia-Pacific with some of the most advanced and state-of-the-art printing facilities, it publishes The Straits Times and 16 other internal publications as well as foreign newspapers on contract.

Spread over 11ha, it was built in the late 1980s at a total cost of $590 million. More than a hundred people are involved in every shift of its operation, seven days a week, 363 days a year. The plant shuts down only on Chinese New Year and Christmas Day. 

“Most of my working life has been around these machines,” says senior production manager (operations) Phua Kia Wah, 64, who has been with the company since 1981 and has seen many machinery upgrades over the years.

The Print Centre currently houses two double-width Colorliner presses from Manroland Goss Web Systems GmbH, and four double-width Commander presses from Koenig & Bauer (KBA).

The KBA presses can print up to 72,000 copies of the paper per hour. These machines are typically run at a speed of 50,000 to 60,000 copies per hour, with each copy having 56 broadsheet pages in colour.

When the KBA presses were fully deployed in 2003, they improved the Print Centre’s capacity substantially. The older Colorliner presses, which started operations in 1997, could print 40 pages in full colour and up to 72,000 copies per hour.

Over the years, as print subscriptions fell, the company consolidated its printing operations in Jurong in August 2017, closing its other printing plant in Genting Lane.

Walking around the Jurong plant in the dead of the night in March, as one awaits the final pages of The Straits Times to arrive online, Mr Phua proudly shows off the facilities that the company acquired over the years.

“Automation has helped a lot,” he says.

In the 1980s, if there were last-minute changes by the editorial team, a driver had to be dispatched from Times House with the film negatives for the pages with corrections to Jurong, and the plates prepared there for printing, while precious minutes ticked by.

“From 20 to 30 minutes in the past, the new revised pages now reach us almost instantly because of the efficient transmission,” he says, with the glimmer of a smile.

It also helped that the company invested in the direct computer-to-plate technology in September 2010. This skips the usual film lithography process to make the pressing plates for the newspaper. It uses thermal digital imaging to print the plates instead.

“We saved a lot of time,” remarks Mr Phua.

Ink is delivered to the printing presses through a piping system, the total length of which exceeds 1.2km. Nearly 20,000kg of ink is used every month.

Another upgrade that helped substantially with operations was the robotic self-guided vehicles (SGVs), which do the repetitive work of ferrying newsprint rolls between the storage area and the reel stands as they are needed. The company boasts 39 such SGVs.

“Every SGV movement can be clearly seen from the SGV computer in the control room, which eases the workload quite a bit,” says assistant production manager (materials) Suhaimi Hamzah, 63, who has been with the Print Centre for slightly over four decades.

About 780 reels of newsprint are used every month, with each full-size reel weighing almost 1,300kg (about the weight of a small car).

Mr Low Kok Siong, 55, printing line chief, who has been with the Print Centre for 35 years, appreciates the moves over the years to modernise the plant.

“Thirty years ago, when we operated in the previous Metro press plant, my shirt used to be drenched with sweat as we worked. There were a lot of publications, there was no air-con, it was hot and humid, and many of the processes were manual,” he recalls. 

“Now, much of it is automated in the Colorliner and KBA plants, and work is more about monitoring, ensuring there is little wastage, there is good quality and targets are met,” he says.

Serving readers, one doorstep at a time

Mr Lee Cheng Chao didn’t want to kill and sell chicken to make a living like his father.

So the sight of a newspaper delivery van coming to the hawker centre in the wee hours of the morning caught his attention. He decided that becoming a newspaper vendor would be a less messy profession.

It’s been 35 years since he signed up to distribute papers for the company, and Mr Lee, now 69, has not looked back.

On 363 days of the year, he works with a small team of part-time delivery workers to send the papers to homes in Hougang Central, and Compassvale and Rivervale in Sengkang.

Mr Lee is among nearly 400 vendors who work with SPH Media to distribute its publications. Besides The Straits Times, there’s The Business Times, Berita Harian, Lianhe Zaobao, Shin Min Daily News, Tamil Murasu and Tabla.

Over the years, vendors have played a crucial role in ensuring that The Straits Times and other newspapers are on doorsteps in good time.

The paper introduced home delivery in 1896, by boys on red bicycles. In 1931, the company bought Morris vans, and also distributed the paper in Malaya, widening its reach. By the 1990s, thousands of copies were being delivered across the city-state by vans and motorcycles.  

Mr Joseph Ang, 48, manager (business operations), production division, who has been with the company since 1999, says: “Previously, it was much more complicated because printing was happening both in Jurong and Genting Lane.

“In those days, print was doing well, and after we upgraded the printers, we could print more, touching nearly 400,000 copies of The Straits Times a day and about one million copies of all group papers. So we had to increase our distribution routing by 20 per cent.”

With the print circulation having dropped now, the delivery routes have also been cut accordingly, but The Straits Times is still being delivered all over the island, he says. 

Vendors must get to their assigned pick-up points for the newspaper at between 2.30am and 3am to begin the day’s work. 

There’s much to do. Different sections of the paper have to be combined to complete each set. Separate bundles are prepared for various location points, where delivery workers will pick them up to dispatch to homes or distribution spots such as 7-Eleven stores.

However, times have been hard lately for vendors. Declining readership for the printed paper has hit their monthly earnings. It is also hard to find delivery workers, many of whom have turned to better-paying food and parcel delivery.

In February 2025, SPH Media chief executive Chan Yeng Kit said that SPH Media was

spending a total of $3 million in subsidies over a year

to support doorstep delivery of newspapers. He noted the challenges faced by vendors, with rising costs of delivery, shrinking print subscriptions as people switch to digital news, and high turnover among vendors.

To help vendors cope with the fall in income and rising costs, SPH Media had been giving them a subsidy of $4 a month for each doorstep delivery to a direct subscriber since April 2024.

At the same time, the company is looking at increasing the number of vending machines it has deployed across the city-state, for readers to pick up the paper themselves.

Mr Haslan Abdul Karim, 42, manager (business operations), who oversees the use of vending machines on the island, says: “We now have about 125 machines in operation and the plan is to increase their usage in the coming months and years.”

Newspaper distribution partner Senthilnathan, 47, who takes care of uploading and removing the papers from the vending machines, says his grandfather and father were vendors.

“I like my work. It takes up about seven hours of my time and is free and easy,” he says. “I am the third generation to be doing the distribution of SPH newspapers and this makes me feel good.”

Many old-time vendors say they want to continue. They are used to the lifestyle and have built relationships with their customers.

Mr Kalyithasan Subbiah, 57, who handles distribution in parts of Hougang, says: “I’ve been doing this for 32 years now. I start at 2.30am, but I am home very early too, and I have the rest of the day to do whatever I want.” 

Another vendor, Mr Nallakannu Radhakrishnan, 52, who has several distribution points in north-east Singapore, says it is the relationship with the customers that keeps him and his team of workers going.

“There are lots of old people who continue to read The Straits Times. About half an hour delay, they can tolerate,” he says about delivery delays.

“But more than one hour, they can’t tolerate. I like to be there, rain or shine, for them.”