Jehovah's Witnesses reorganize printing operations

by Dogpatch 20 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Dogpatch
    Dogpatch

    For Immediate Release
    September 1, 2003
    Printable Version

    Jehovah's Witnesses reorganize printing operations

    The existing printery at Wallkill, New York, is being renovated and new equipment has been purchased that is slated for installation in the spring of 2004. Furthermore, the printing, binding, and shipping operations in Brooklyn will be moved to Wallkill.

    Since 1927, the printery in Brooklyn has produced over one billion books, including Bibles. There is, however, a need to update older printing and binding equipment, some of which is more than 40 years old. The older equipment requires greater maintenance and more manpower to operate. Since the existing facilities in Brooklyn can't accommodate the 133-foot-long presses, it was determined that current printery operations in Wallkill be expanded to make way for the newer, better equipment.

    Lon Schilling, long-time Wallkill resident and a key spokesman for the project, also explains: "The consolidation of the U.S. printery operations at Wallkill is only possible because we recently reorganized our worldwide book production." Prior to this reorganization, the facilities in Brooklyn produced almost 50 percent of the books used in the Bible education work for which Jehovah's Witnesses are known worldwide. He continues: "Some of the book production shifted to our printeries in other countries, making better use of their facilities. The use of new, more efficient equipment will make it possible to increase production worldwide with reduced personnel."

    Eventually five branches—Brazil, Britain, Japan, Mexico, and South Africa, will also obtain a new printing press each. The two new high-speed MAN Lithoman rotary web offset presses purchased for Wallkill are capable of producing magazines and book signatures (individual printed sections of a book) at a rate of 90,000 per hour. The new bindery equipment is capable of producing hardcover books and deluxe Bibles at a rate of 120 a minute, and the shipping will be handled more efficiently using a high-rise storage system that allows publications to be stored in less than half the floor space currently used in Brooklyn. These improvements will contribute to a streamlined flow of literature to the 12,000 congregations in the United States.

    There are one million Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States. Their primary journal, The Watchtower, has an international circulation of 25,203,000, in 147 languages. It has the largest circulation of any religious journal and is by far the world's most widely translated magazine.

    Contact: J. R. Brown, telephone: (718) 560-5600

    Anyone have any more update on this!

    Randy Watters

    Net Soup!

    http://www.freeminds.org


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  • sf
    sf

    As I just stated in jw yahoo chatroom, as I brought them the NewLight and told them it was official jw news...

    Guess it isn't as important preparing for the New System, thus Armageddon as it is in preparing for the 'New World Order' of Things.

    sKally

  • suzi_creamcheez
    suzi_creamcheez

    ... book production shifted to our printeries in other countries, making better use of their facilities Cheap labor and property in developing nations. Also, lots of potential converts.

    ...increase production worldwide with reduced personnel. another purge is in the works

    ...using a high-rise storage system that allows publications to be stored in less than half the floor space... in Brooklyn. This is sure to be a safety hazard when Armageddon comes. Scores of bethelites will no doubt meet an untimely death, bonked in the head by falling bibles and smothered by magazines. All that paper, what a fire hazard.

    ... of course i'm not psychic or annointed, just my 2 cents -suz

  • mizpah
    mizpah

    The Watchtower leaders sure know how to spend their members money! It's a wonder that early Christians were able to spread the "good news" at all without the benefit of the latest printing presses and new facilities. It's really quite disgusting how such a big printing business can pass itself off as part of "God's organization."

  • Winston Smith :>D
    Winston Smith :>D

    the books used in the Bible education work for which Jehovah's Witnesses are known worldwide

    Lon Schilling: key spokesman for the project

    So, according to the WTS’ own press release, what are JW’s known for?

    Their love?

    Their charity?

    The Bible truths they dispense to people?

    Nope, the above quote right from the horse’s mouth clearly admits their claim to fame.

    They are known worldwide as a book printing company. Priceless!

    Their primary journal, The Watchtower

    Yep. Again, I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Not the bible, but the Watchtower.

    Winston.

  • run dont walk
    run dont walk

    They are known worldwide as a book printing company. Priceless!
    well said Winston !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • metatron
    metatron

    Less manpower!

    Also, the "manpower" will likely be more cut-off, isolated from the rest of the world in Wallkill rather than Brooklyn.

    They also feel the sting of a 1.5 million dollar settlement that suggests a big liability in the actions of Watchtower

    "employees" Fewer bodies mean less trouble.

    Don't hope for "reform" herein - look for more withdrawal and pretense that everything is going fine.

    metatron

  • Bendrr
    Bendrr

    Or maybe the old geezers finally decided they'd had enough of the big city and wanted a quiet view of the Catskills and to be a little closer to "the launching pad".

    Mike.

  • blondie
    blondie

    That will put a strain on the local congregations. When I was out near Wallkill, the congregations were already 1/3 or more Bethelites. Some even drove 50 miles one way to attend a congregation. Even if the "efficient" machinery means a drop in Bethel personnel, most congregations may be 50% or more Bethelites. That means that elders from Bethel will not be available for congregational assignments like the local brothers who get dumped on to take assignments at the last minute and handle all the maintenance issues at the KH. Some congregations had 12 elders. If you think 5 or 6 elders can't agree and politick, you have no idea when there are 12 and 50% or more are from Bethel.

    Blondie

  • willyloman
    willyloman

    Winston pretty much nailed the WT press release statements to the wall, but here's more duplicity:

    ...the facilities in Brooklyn produced almost 50 percent of the books used in the Bible education work for which Jehovah's Witnesses are known worldwide...

    ...The Watchtower, has ... the largest circulation of any religious journal and is by far the world's most widely translated magazine...

    There are three examples of spinmeister-ism at play here.

    1. There has been no poll conducted that I've ever seen that proves JWs are known worldwide for "bible education work." I am pretty certain that if you sat outside any office building in any major city and polled everyone who walked out the front door, one of the LAST things people would say they recognize about JWs is that they are involved in bible education work. So they are hardly "known worldwide" for this; the language is designed to reposition themselves.

    2. The word "circulation" is widely misused in the publishing industry. All reputable magazines have their circulation audited independently by huge firms that do this for a living and have reputations to protect, and when, say, Ladies Home Journal tells you their circulation is, oh, maybe 2.5 million, that number's been verified. Also, that's the number of copies they sold; in other words, somebody went out and bought the magazine; they sought it out. Free publications are not eligible for circulation audits for the most part; if and when they are accepted for an audit by a legitimate firm, the audit must be based on proveable distribution; in other words, receipts from Post Office for mailing X number of copies, or some such. No reputable auditing company would ever accept the number of copies that are PRINTED as the same thing as CIRCULATION. They are not the same. Even audited publications print many more copies than they circulate; lots of copies are used in-house, or are returned from news racks, for example. The WT press release wants you to believe this is REAL circulation but everyone on this board and in every KH across the globe knows that many, many of these magazines simply pile up on book shelves, or in the bottom of book bags, and are eventually tossed out.

    3. The term "widely translated" is used to suggest that people are so eager to obtain these precious magazines that all over the world folks are translating them into their own languages. Not so. If you back up a few sentences, the press release acknowledges that the society itself translates and publishes these in many languages. There is absolutely NO evidence that anyone else, anywhere, translates these magazines into other languages (in significant numbers, for general distribution). But that's what the WT spinmeister means to imply.

    That's my take on it, anyway.

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