Newpaper printing elite announced

The list of winners is available at www.colorqualityclub.org/website/ifra.nsf/html/cqc_winners_08-10.

This quality benchmarking competition (www.colorqualityclub.org) has been organised at two-year intervals since 1994 and this time attracted a record number of 198 registrations from newspaper houses from a record 43 countries from all continents. Participation was open to all newspapers, independent of circulation, frequency of publication (daily or weekly) and IFRA, NAA or PANPA membership.

International jury

An international jury of experts met in February in Phoenix, Arizona, to select not only the best results worldwide, but also the most successful regional results from North America and Asia. The 50 newspaper titles from 18 countries that achieved the international club membership will be presented and honoured on 11 April, on the eve of Nexpo 2008, in Washington, DC, as well as during IFRA Expo 2008, 27 – 30 October in Amsterdam.

Fifty percent of the new INCQC members are first-time members. The St. Galler Tagblatt (Switzerland) has been a member in the quality club without interruption since 1994, therefore qualifying eight times.

IFRA, NAA and PANPA experts were occupied from November 2007 to the end of February 2008 with the careful evaluation of the entries. As a precondition for participation, the newspapers, including many IFRA, NAA and PANPA members wanting to benchmark their printing and reproduction quality at international level, had to process and print a series of specially prepared test elements, photos and digital ads. In addition, they had to collect and submit sample printed copies taken from their daily production over a longer period.

Quality evaluated

The reproduced and printed test elements were all measured and the quality evaluated. The printing quality of copies entered from daily production was examined page by page and likewise evaluated. The third part of the overall evaluation consisted of judging an editorial image to be printed and of a digital ad. This part of the evaluation process, that was carried out anonymously, was done by a jury of experts composed of representatives of publishing houses that participated successfully in the last competition.

The individual evaluation reports will be mailed to the participants in mid-March. The book (The Winners) accompanying the competition, containing a one-page, detailed description of each of the 50 successful INCQC members, will be published in April and can be downloaded then from www.colorqualityclub.org or ordered from IFRA (contact Ulrike Leis-Kolb on tel +49 6151 733 772or email .

For more information on IFRA, NAA and PANPA, go to www.ifra.com, www.naa.org and www.panpa.org.au.