The ӰAV will be printed in Las Vegas, Nevada, starting in October, due to the closure of a Gannett printing facility in Phoenix that now prints the Star as well as The Arizona Republic.
Print editions will have to be trucked from Las Vegas, but the change will not affect delivery times to customers, said ӰAV Executive Editor David McCumber.
Gannett announced Tuesday that the printing facility in Phoenix will close in October, resulting in layoffs of 117 of its employees there. Printing operations for The Republic, a Gannett newspaper, will also move to Las Vegas in October.
The Star will continue to be printed seven days a week. The final day of Phoenix printing for the ӰAV, a Lee Enterprises newspaper, will be Oct. 5.
“We’re still going to put out a daily newspaper. We’re going to put out the best paper that our deadlines will allow us to put out, just as we do now,” McCumber said.
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“We’ve been out of the immediate, breaking news business for a while in print. We’re used to not having the late deadlines that having our own presses afforded us, so it’s an adjustment,” he said.

The Gannett printing presses in north Phoenix.
The Star has been printed in Phoenix since its printing presses in Tucson closed in 2019.
“We value our print customers, and nothing’s changed as far as our commitment to print. We’re going to continue to give our print customers an excellent product,” McCumber said. “We will still be able to produce the deep enterprise that we do and the features.
“Having to adjust to new deadlines is nothing new in this business. We’ve been doing this for years.”
Readers will still find breaking news, sports and all of Tucson’s news through the Star’s website, , as well as the newspaper’s ӰAV, which all print subscribers have access to.
“We still have the tool of immediacy and the ability to break news online. We’ll be depending on our ӰAV and the rest of to present the latest news,” McCumber said. “We’ve got to use each platform to its best purpose, and the best way to get breaking news is online. It has been that way for several years and that won’t change.”
The Star’s news, advertising, finance and circulation staff are all staying in Tucson.
All Gannett employees involved in the printing process in Phoenix will receive severance packages once the plant closes, and after operations cease, “a small number of employees will be retained” to help relocate or decommission equipment and clean the facility, The Arizona Republic reported.
The Gannett facility in Phoenix also prints the Ventura County Star, the Victorville Daily Press and Palm Springs-based Desert Sun. The transition will result in those papers moving print operations to Riverside, California.