Scent of the Press

by Melissa Uhl Draut

Photo by Bank Phrom for Unsplash

My favorite scent of the past is one I don’t easily access these days, but fondly recall. In 1983, I started working at The Courier-Journal newspaper in Louisville in the marketing department. I finally got my foot in the door of the place I wanted to work, and it was a turning point in my life.

My Dad, an electrical engineer, worked next door at Standard Gravure, a magazine printing company, that was also owned by the Bingham family who owned the newspaper and other media companies. When I was a child, he would occasionally bring home end rolls, the left-over newsprint paper at the end of a roll. It had such a wonderfully clean smell to me, and it was perfect for drawing and coloring.  When I started working there, Dad and I would drive to work together. At the end of a day, I would walk across the connecting bridge from our building to their pressroom to meet Dad and would catch a whiff of that fresh newsprint scent.

I loved working at the newspaper and grew into a variety of roles throughout my 24-year career. Most of my days started with a walk up the back stairs to the fifth-floor cafeteria to fetch a beverage or to another floor for a meeting. Maybe because it was a quiet time of day or before I got into the thick of activity, I always noticed that fresh scent of the newsprint in the morning in that stairwell. Physically it made sense (pun intended) – the stairs descended to the basement where the two-ton rolls of paper were stored, and the first floor led to the pressroom floor.

The fresh scent of clean newsprint was an institutional smell – representing the actual manufacturing of the newspaper and printed word.  When I think about that scent today or some piece of paper remotely carries that newsprint smell (sometimes used in delivery packages), it carries with it my career, historical events, friendships, conflicts, and learning. I grew up with that scent in the most formative years of my career. Working at the newspaper in those days was like going to college again with so many interesting people in different departments and that scent of the press and the printed word united us all. From my beginning days of working on new projects to head banging times when I was later in management, that scent reminded me why I was there. The scent of the newsprint in the morning brought a reminder that most days I loved working there and was glad to be a part of something important to our community. That scent reminds me of three moments in history.

1. The scent was smoldering on September 14, 1989, when a 47-year-old pressman, killed eight people and injured twelve at Standard Gravure, before committing suicide. Miraculously, my Dad was not in his office that morning because he had to take a package to the post office for my mother and was a few minutes later than normal. As the Production Director, he led the fire department through the building to ensure none of the shells had started equipment fires. He witnessed the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in Kentucky’s history. To say things were not the same for him is an understatement and another story to be told.
2. On September 11, 2001, the scent was a vital signal that as helpless as we felt, we could at least do something to tell the story of this national tragedy. From the second-floor pressroom windows, I watched a special edition roll out. While television was the medium of the moment with the endless loop showing the planes hitting the towers and the towers falling, that newspaper copy made it real with the power of photographs and stories right there on the page where we could start to come to grips with what this event meant.
3. In 2004, I wrapped up the most exciting project of my career. I was part of the team to complete the building and introduction of four new color presses, an $80 million project. I could sing in my sleep all the new color capabilities and speed of the presses since I was responsible for training employees and advertising customers. Along with that new building smell, the fresh scent of the newsprint remained. After that project I knew nothing else could top that experience and it was time to go. In 2007, I took a severance package and started a new career. Sadly, those new presses closed in March 2021 to be sold to another facility.

Some people complain the newspaper is not the way it used to be. Of course, it’s not, it can’t be – it’s not the same business model that it once was. But there’s still something there, maybe not the quality it once was, but there are still stories being told. And in some new form, some new business model will tell the stories that need to be told. It’s vital to communities. For now, I still get a newsprint copy just in case my favorite scent is still lingering on the page.