Newspaper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Newspapers have also been developed around very narrow topic areas, such as news for merchants in a specific industry, fans of particular sports, fans of the arts or of specific artists, and participants in the same sorts of activities or lifestyles.
The general variety is issued every day, often with the exception of Sundays and some general holidays. Weekly newspapers, printed once a week, are also common; they tend to be smaller and less prestigious than daily papers.
Most nations have at least one newspaper that circulates throughout the whole country, but in the United States and Canada, there are few truly national newspapers, with the exception of USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. Large metropolitan newspapers with expanded distribution networks such as the New York Times or Toronto's Globe and Mail often fill the national paper role.
The person or company who owns the newspaper is the publisher, and the person responsible for content is the editor or editor-in-chief.
Circulation and readership
The number of copies sold on an average day is called the newspaper's circulation, and is used to set advertising rates. 1995 data from the United Nations indicate that Japan is the country with most newspaper readership, which had three daily papers with a circulation well above 4 million. Germany's Bild, with a circulation of 4.5 million, was the only other paper in that category. USA Today has daily circulation of approximately 2 million, making it the most widely read paper in the U.S.
Newspaper business models
Almost all newspapers make almost all their money from advertising. The income from the customer's payment at the newsstand is a pittance in comparison. This is why all newspapers are cheap and some are free: publishers of commercial newspapers always strive for higher circulation so that advertising in their newspaper becomes more effective, allowing the newspaper to attract more advertisers and charge more for the service.
The portion of the newspaper that is not advertising is called editorial content. Many paid-for newspapers offer a variety of subscription plans. For example, one might only want a Sunday paper, or perhaps only Sunday and Saturday, or maybe only a workweek subscription, or perhaps a daily subscription.
Some newspapers provide some or all of their content on the Internet, either at no cost or for a fee.
History of newspapers
Regular publications have been created and distributed by governments for millennia, including Acta Diurna, a listing of events ordered by Julius Caesar in ancient Rome in 59 B.C., and Mixed News, published in China in 713 A.D.
According to the World Association of Newspapers, the first titled English language private newspaper, The Corante, was first published in London in 1621. In 1631 The Gazette, the first French newspaper, was founded. And in 1645, the oldest newspaper still in circulation, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar of Sweden, began publishing.
In 1690, Publick Occurrences in Boston became the first newspaper published in America. It was suppressed after one issue.
In 1803, just 15 years after the first British penal colony was established, Australia's military government published the Sydney Gazette and the New South Wales Advertiser, Australia's first newspapers.
Newspaper journalism
Since newspapers began as a way to journal, or keep a record of, current events, the profession which is involved in the making of newpapers began to be called journalism. Much emphasis has been placed upon the value of the journalist to be accurate and fair in the historical record. (See Ethics). On the other hand, it speaks well of the profession that these principles could just as easily have been abandoned long ago.
In the yellow journalism of the 19th century, many newspapers in the United States relied on sensational stories that were meant to anger or excite, rather than to inform. The more restrained style of reporting that relies on fact checking and accuracy regained popularity around World War II.
Ironically, recent criticism of American journalism appearing in the early 2000s includes that which says newspapers are too unbiased; that by presenting only bland fact, and being overly cautious never to never make inferences from patterns of past events, newspapers abandon the true story in exchange for an extremely shallow he said, she said sort of story. Recently, several alternative news sources, most notoriously on the Internet, have sprung up in order to offset this amnesiac method of reporting.
Newspaper ownership
Newspapers have often been owned by so-called press barons, either as a rich man's toy, or used as a political tool.
Even though the opinions of the owners and readers is often relegated to the editorial section, or op-ed section (for "opinion-editorial") of the paper, newspapers have been used for political purposes by insinuating some kind of bias outside of the editorial section and into straight news. For example, the New York Times is often criticized for a leftist slant to its stories, whereas the Wall Street Journal has a history of emphasizing the position of the right.
Newspaper formats
A modern daily newspaper is generally printed on large sheets of paper, usually on a thin, somewhat rough paper known as newsprint. Since the 1980s, many newpapers have been printed with three-color process photography and graphics. This highlights the fact that the layout of the newspaper is of prime importance in getting attention so that large sections of the newspaper will be seen and enjoyed by the readers.
National variations
United States
U.S. dailies commonly separate the physical newspaper into sections, each containing content on a particular topic. Most major American cities' papers will have sections covering at least a few of the following topics:
- National and International News
- Local News. This section is called the Metro (from metropolitan) section in many large cities' papers. Sometimes this contains news tailored to a particular part of the city, and different versions of this section will be inserted into the papers sold in various parts of the city.
- Sports
- Classified ads
- Arts or Home furnishing or Fashion or Style or some combination
- Weekend or Entertainment. This section includes many ads for upcoming entertainment events which usually occur on the weekend; this section usually appears on a Friday, or the last newspaper printed before the weekend.
- Comics. Typically only a separate section on Sundays; daily papers will include a page or more of comics in another section.
- Opinion or Editorial. Includes both editorials by the newspaper's editorial staff and letters to the editor from readers. Typically only a separate section on Sundays; daily papers will include these materials in the back of the national, regional, metro, or local news sections.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, newspapers can be classified by distribution as local or national and by page size as tabloids and broadsheets. There is often an implication that tabloids cater for more vulgar tastes than broadsheets. Within the tabloid category some titles are classed as red-tops because of the design of their front pages. This term is often used deprecatingly by newspapers that consider themselves more serious.
Most areas also typically have one or more free local papers, with extensive classified advertising.
Germany
In Germany, the distinction between serious and tabloid papers is usually made according to whether they are available on subscription. The more sensational tabloids such as Bild are commonly called Boulevardzeitungen (boulevard papers), since they are normally available at the newsstand only; by contrast, the more serious Abonnementzeitungen (subscription papers) sell a large amount of their circulation to subscribers. An unusual phenomenon is the Berg Zeitung, published (together with an illustrated column) almost daily by Weberberg.de.
See also
- List of newspapers (by country)
- Freedom of the press
- Graphic design
- History of British newspapers
- Journalism
- Photojournalism
- Printing
- Magazine
- Mass media
- Newspaper circulation
External links