Visiting the Newspaper

The Bakersfield Californian

Sarah and I went on a field trip this morning to the Bakersfield Californian. We learned the process of making newspapers and so much more! First we went into a room with all the ads in it. Some stores make their own ads and others just tell them what they want and the Bakersfield Californian makes it for them. If we remember right, they have to make 80,000 ads! Wow! Instead of counting to find out if there are 80,000 ads they weigh them on a huge scale! Also, the ads must be in 3 weeks before the Sunday newspaper comes out.

Next we went into a paper storage room. There he told us that they use 20-25 rolls of paper a day. Now if you’ve ever seen those rolls, they’re huge! Each of those large rolls cost $750. Paying for the paper is their main cost besides employees. He took us to a couple of other rooms but one of our favorites was the pressing room! Our tour guide explained how they can print black and white on both sides but color on only one side at a time. The machines that they use were massive!

After they printed and folded the papers they were transferred into another room by a cool conveyer belt thing. There, they sorted out the bad ones right when they entered the room, and then continued on the awesome conveyor belt. When they left the conveyor belt ads were stuck in them and then they were packaged into crates that were going to be delivered out to people and dispensers. One other interesting thing was they made all the news papers at night from about 11 to 3:00. It was very interesting.