Newsprint rationing gripped the British press during World War II and has clung ever since. Last week London's Times (circ. 221,972) broke the shackles by a simple expedient: it stopped using newsprint. Instead, the staid old daily began publishing on "mechanical" paper—the heavier, thicker (though still unglossy) paper used by such British magazines as the Economist and the Listener. The Times patiently planned the changeover in 1950, when it began to invest in its own paper company and set an ink manufacturer to developing a suitable ink for rotary presses. The new paper costs a third more than newsprint, but it...
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