Apologies if this has been covered a million times before, but I didn't see it after a quick search. I've heard that using newspaper with coloured ink is not good for composting, due to toxicity of the inks, but black ink is fine. Anyone heard anything similar?
I haven't heard that black ink is safer, nor that all news printers use the same ink. We don't compost newspaper, just in case.
Contact the printer of your local paper- many use soy based inks these days, even for color. This is newsprint only, not the glossy inserts.
One can never be too careful. I will not buy soil unless the seller will provide a stat dec saying that the soil has been kept under glass since a month before the first Europeans arrived here: after that time, there is a chance that a bird that ate an earthworm that once chomped through polluted soil may have relieved itself while flying over the soil that is now for sale, which will therefore be carcinogenic. I believe that other posters share my concerns.
I took a composting class a few years ago, and the instructor (who was from the state university "master gardener" program) said essentially what infinidox posted above: that colored inks may be safe, or they may not, but that the black ink used today for newsprint is non-toxic and safe for composting. In fact, strips of newspaper were suggested as a means of adding "brown" material to the mix to balance "green" (i.e. nitrogen-rich) material, such as grass clippings. It's possible, I guess, that this advice is not universally applicable but based on the particular situation here in Maine.