Why did I find blank pages in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin newspaper?
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin is printed on presses fed by large rolls of newsprint which are changed during press runs. Blank pages occur during the paste cycle when a press pastes the end of one roll of newsprint to the beginning of a new roll, thereby producing a double thickness of newsprint. As the paster passes through the press, only the outer surfaces of the two pages are inked. When such a blank sheet appears in a newspaper, it separates correctly printed pages; none of the newspaper is missing. Occasionally, blank pages are caused by ink starvation to the anilox cylinder in a press, or, rarely, by running a press with a plate missing from a plate cylinder, or, very rarely, by a plate coming off a cylinder while a press is running. A working press is monitored continually. If a blank page is detected, the press is stopped immediately and newspapers with blank pages are called back from stackers and bundlers before they leave the printing plant. Once in a while a few newspapers get into circulation before a blank page is noticed.