Ariadne Will: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Mako 4x CTP: I’m a Mako 4x CTP platemaker. CTP stands for “computer to plate.” Once two pages [of the day’s newspaper] are composed, they’ll be sent down to me. You can listen to my engines hum—here—that’s my laser spinning around. I expose a plate to ultraviolet light and make an image on it.
And the plate, it's a sheet of aluminum, about two feet by three feet, the size of two newspaper pages. I expose that, and then I send it to my friend, the Kodak Polychrome. They will process the plate, heat it up, send it through some developer, put a gum solution on the plate, dry it off, spit it out, and then the plate will be ready to hang on the press.
Editor’s note: An interview with the printing press will appear in a later edition of the Inside Scoop.
AW: How long have you been working at the Sentinel?
Mako: We showed up here, oh, probably about seven years ago now.
AW: Okay, about 2018ish?
Mako: Well, before then. Time goes by really fast when you're a machine and you’re left on all the time.
AW: So you and the Kodak Polychrome were hired at the same time?
Mako: Yeah. We replaced the CTN—computer to negative—system. That guy's upstairs. He's been unplugged now for a while.
AW: That's too bad.
Mako: He did a pretty good job, but we don't need negatives anymore. We need plates, so the folks here took a step out of their system and brought us on.
I’m actually an earlier generation CTP. There's another system that other newspapers in Southeast are starting to use that makes the Mako system, of which I'm a member, a bit redundant, so we now have my friend over here—my cousin—CRM, from Petersburg, and another cousin over here, from Ketchikan. They got shipped [to the Sentinel] when those newspapers went to this other system. The Sentinel might go to that system eventually, but right now, I’m…
AW: Gainfully employed.
Mako: Yeah. Gainfully employed. [Laughs.]
It's kind of harrowing when I go down, because there's a guy in Texas, David, who helps the local folks here and who tinkers with us. Lots of proprietary engineering stuff. And sometimes I like to throw a fit.
AW: I see. I’m sure they’re glad you’re showing up today, and I appreciate you taking the time.
Mako: Yeah. Thanks.
