Reporter at 50: The introduction of full color

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In observance of the 50th anniversary of Reporter, this column includes short snippets of Reporter history.

The previous installment of “Reporter at 50” noted some ways Reporter has changed over the years, including its format (from newsletter to newspaper), frequency (varying from weekly to monthly) and publisher (from being published by Concordia Publishing House to being published by the Synod).

Reporter has undergone other changes as well. A notable one was the introduction of color — first in the mid-1990s, with the minimal use of only one or two colors to highlight and add variety to text; and then, a decade later, with the addition of full-color photos.

The addition of four-color printing (the process by which four basic colors are used in combination to produce a full color palette) in Reporter came 10 years after the newspaper industry had, as a whole, adopted it; however, even among high-profile national newspapers, there were significant holdouts. The New York Times did not print in color until 1993, The Washington Post until 1999 and The Wall Street Journal until 2002. (The Wall Street Journal’s move to color was precipitated at least in part by its inability to include color photos of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.) There were several reasons for the holdouts, some practical (cost and quality) and others philosophical (the belief that the most important element should be the written word and the fear that increased emphasis on design elements might overshadow that).

In Reporter, the addition of color necessitated the need for more photography. In 2013, the Synod hired Erik Lunsford, a newspaper staff photojournalist who had worked at several major newspapers around the country, to serve in LCMS Communications as managing photojournalist. Lunsford brought over a decade of daily newspaper photojournalism experience to the church. As he approaches 11 years of service to the Synod, his work has featured prominently in the pages of all the Synod’s publications. In the print edition of Reporter, the center photo story featuring Lunsford’s work has been one of the newspaper’s most popular features since it began almost a decade ago.

In the next installment of “Reporter at 50,” we’ll look at some of the enduring elements of the newspaper that — true to its Lutheran identity — have not changed.

Posted May 9, 2024