What does your Northern Star have in common with the Chicago Tribune? A lot more than you think.

Upper management from the Tribune visited The Northern Star Friday to give students advice and compare the workings of a college paper with a major metropolitan paper.

Mick Tierney, the Tribune’s production creative supervisor and Rich Schovanec, a Tribune senior division sales manager, spoke to the production and advertising departments of the Star about the workings of the Tribune and the Star.

Tierney and Schovanec were invited to come in and share their knowledge and experience with members of the Star staff in an effort to improve those areas which could use it. Tierney has been at the Tribune for 29 years and Schovanec is a 24-year veteran of the paper.

“Both gentleman, in the past, have contributed to training Star employees,” said Maria Krull, business adviser for the Star. Schovanec has been coming to the Star for the last five years to talk to and train the staff.

Krull said Schovanec has been the program coordinator for the Inter-Collegiate Newspaper Conference which involves students from the college newspapers of NIU, Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Western Illinois University in Macomb, Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois State University in Normal, Sangamon State University in Springfield and Governors State University in University Park. This program for college newspapers is sponsored by the Star.

“Mr. Schovanec has been a great supporter and an inspiration to our advertising department,” Krull said. “He helps with the training of Star employees and he enlists other people from the Tribune to come and help the Star. An example of this is Mr. Tierney. He also has helped our students get jobs at the Tribune,” she said.

Tierney and Schovanec spent about two hours talking about ways to more effectively lay out the paper and how to sell more advertisements. In this span of time, the two men answered many questions that members of the staff had. Overall, Tierney and Schovanec had many positive things to say about the Star.

One thing that both men made mention to a few times is the fact that the Tribune and the Star have many similarities. “The Star is just like the Tribune,” Schovanec said. “We both have the same problems and the same situations to deal with.”

Tierney said, “There really is not much difference between your paper and ours, except ours is on a larger scale.”

Schovanec said he finds it very interesting that the Star got its first Macintosh computer to assist in layout about the time he first started coming to DeKalb. The Tribune, on the other hand, still was cutting and pasting its layouts manually while the Star was using computer technology. Schovanec said the Tribune did not start using a Macintosh until about three years ago.

Schovanec said new employees at the Tribune have to be put through an intensive training program to learn about things most college newspapers do not teach. “Someone working in the environment of the Star can go into a major newspaper without much training,” Schovanec said.

Both advised the Star staff members. Tierney said, “Good reproduction is an essential element. Better reproduction of newsprint adds to value of the paper.” He said the disadvantage of newsprint is that the color is actually yellow, not white. The image, therefore, must be enhanced in order to get a better end result. “This has been a problem with newspapers since they began,” Tierney said.

“Some of the things done this year got away from the traditional forms of advertising,” Schovanec said. “The Star is looking for other avenues for generating revenue beside just mainstream newspaper advertising. This is good because it shows that you are aware of the problem and are addressing it.”

Tierney said, “As far as the making aspect of the paper is concerned, the Star is doing an incredible job.

“I found the environment of the paper similar to that in which I am working in and it is one in which I think staffers can be very productive,” Tierney said.