Newspapers

[Kess]

I have heard foreigners say we have a lot of newspapers in the UK.  We have (I've probably missed some):

Broadsheets from left to right, politically:
Guardian
Independent
'i' (Independent's spin-off little brother)
Times
Telegraph

Upmarket Tabloids:
Daily Mail
Daily Express

Tabloids:
Sun
Mirror
Daily Star

Then specialist newspapers such as the Financial Times, newspapers for religions and ethnic groups, and of course many many many regional newspapers, with some regions having more than one (my parents get three regional papers delivered, for example).

There can be a lot of assumptions about the type of person who reads each paper.  "Guardian readers" is used to mean "Woolly left-wing liberals" in some circles for instance (a label us Guardian readers are perfectly happy with in general ), and the Telegraph is nicknamed the Torygraph regarding its alignment with that political party.

How does the print media work in other countries?

[Barney girl]

Could I also ask the question whether they have much foreign news? I was surprised in Canada that the papers I looked at had at most two pages of news from the rest of the world. I may just have been unlucky in my choices.

[Glaceon]

Around here the options are the newspaper out of the city, which is the capital, but not a huge metropolis.  World news is typical of your experience in that one.  That's what most people get if they get a paper.  You can find papers from the two major cities as well, with maybe a bit more international news.  USA Today is available in some places.  That's a national paper and I'm not very familiar with it.  There are small local papers, too.  There is no international news - it's all local small town stuff.  You can get special papers like the Wall Street Journal here too, but you'll have to go to a bookstore to find them. 

There's really no such thing as rival papers or "types" of people who read certain ones.  Like I said, most people who get a daily paper or refer to "the paper" mean our bigger city paper or the small town local.

[JoW]

Sometimes I think Europeans forget how large the US is.  The distance between New York City and Los Angeles is about 2800 miles (4500 km).  (For comparison, London to Paris is about 210 km, or 130 miles.)

There is no "national newspaper".  The delivery time is too great.  Sure, you can get the New York Times in Los Angeles, but even if its shipped by air it take at least 12 hours to get there.   

Glaceon is right.  In most cities you can get one local daily paper.  In smaller cities you can generally also get the paper from the big city 200-300 miles (320-480 km) away.  Newspapers aren't separated by political view, they are separated by geography. 

I know of two exceptions to the above - the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.  As far as I can tell both are printed in many cities for prompt delivery nation wide.  The Wall Street Journal only covers financial news.  USA today tries to be a national newspaper, so it doesn't cover any area of the US very well. 

There are several national weekly news magazines, but they aren't distributed like newspapers.  They are sold in book stores or you can subscribe and have your issue mailed to your home. 

[Bluenomi]

In Australia we also have regional papers. Each capital city has their own and the Melbourne and Sydney papers are generally avaliable around the country (though they would be getting old by the time they get to Perth!) There is one national newpaper I can think of and I suspect it is printed in many locations to be distrubted on time.

Many of the papers are owned by the same company though so share stories and all their websites are linked. The Sydney Morning Herald, The Melbourne Age and The Canberra Times for example.

I worked at a newagency in Canberra for a while and in winter if it was foggy the Melbourne papers would be really late because they were flown in and the plane couldn't land. Sydney papers came by truck so fog wasn't an issue with them.

[Dindrane]

I know of two exceptions to the above - the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.  As far as I can tell both are printed in many cities for prompt delivery nation wide.  The Wall Street Journal only covers financial news.  USA today tries to be a national newspaper, so it doesn't cover any area of the US very well.

The New York Times is also delivered nationally.  It costs an arm and a leg, but you can get it.  It's also sold in just about every Starbucks I've ever seen, and in bookstores.

I am not sure about the range of delivery, but the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post are also major newspapers with national readership.  I think the Chicago Tribune may be pretty widely read as well.

The Wall Street Journal may cover financial news primarily, but it is not just financial news.  They certainly cover politics a great deal of the time, and have other non-financial news stories.  A lot of people read the WSJ as their primary source of news.

From my own personal experience and observations, most major metropolitan areas in the US have at least one newspaper, and some have more than one.  Most places that can properly be called "cities" (rather than towns) also have their own newspaper, most of which are dailies.

However, a lot of the content in smaller newspapers especially, but even in large newspapers, comes from places like the Associated Press or Reuters.  Typically, news that is international or national will not come from local reporters.  Most of the columnists in the Op-Ed pages will be nationally syndicated as well, although there may be some local contributors every so often.  Only newspapers as large as the New York Times or Washington Post actually employ Op-Ed columnists directly, and those people are usually the ones whose columns show up in other newspapers.

Since so much of the content in most newspapers isn't actually produced by the newspaper itself, they tend not to "lean" especially obviously in one direction or another.  There are exceptions to that (which I won't name here, to avoid contention), but most newspapers' editorial boards have political leanings that become obvious during election season.  Editorial boards typically endorse specific candidates running for office, and who they endorse can tell you a lot about what their political views are.

[Ereine]

Finland is among the most enthusiastic newspaper readers in the world, though the industry has declined here too, though not as much in dome other countries. I don't get a newspaper, mostly because of the cost and I don't think that I'm alone in my age group. Many people still subsribe, though, papers are delivered to your home around 4 am so they're ready for breakfast. It's possible to buy single issues of newspapers but with the exception of tabloids (which can't be subscribed) it's not very common.

There's one major national newspaper that's actually the local newspaper for Helsinki, Helsingin Sanomat. There are also political national newspapers, I think that every one of the four major parties has one. They're mostly read by party members. And there's one national weekly Christian newspaper. Other newspapers may have a connection to a party but most at least claim to be neutral. We don't have that sort of class system so the newspaper you read doesn't really tell that much about you. Except that if you only read the tabloids you're probably not very intellectually inclined while Helsingin Sanomat has a more high-brow reputation (even though they're published by the same company that also publishes one of the tabloids).

All major towns have a newspaper that's usually also read in the surrounding area. Some of them are owned by the same companies or have formed associations so they share some content, usually longer articles on Sundays and things like that.

I've recently learned that almost every place has a newspaper, no matter how small. They tend to be werkly or bi-weekly. I work in a tiny advertising agency and part of work is to contact newspapers and buy ad space and so I've learned about newspapers I'd never would have heard about otherwise.

There are also free newspapers in at least every town, I get two of them and they do a good job covering local issues.

The amount of foreign news depends on if there's something special going on. Today the two newspapers my work gets had two and three pages but most of their sections are that length and they're quite thin at the moment because of falling advertising. Major newspapers have their own correspondents in key areas and buy some articles from news agencies or use freelancers or their own reporters who happen to be travelling (I had some journalism classes at school and remember best the advice to plan all your vacations so you can sell stories about them).

[camlan]

What Dindrane said.

Before USA Today, the New York Times was the closest we came to a national newspaper. It was the one paper you could find pretty much all over the country--although in many places you would have to hunt a bit to find a store that carried it and the cost would be high.  You could get a subscription to the NYT if you lived in a major metropolitan area in the US--I know this was possible in the 1970s and I'm sure earlier. The Sunday edtion of the NYT has long been pretty available across the US. 

USA Today is mostly national and international news, because it was designed to be of interest to people all over the US. Local type news only gets in when it is attention-gathering.

Most states have at least one "major" paper, like the Chicago Tribune or the Washington Post or the Boston Globe. You get local news, national news and a smattering of international stories. There there are many smaller, local papers, some daily, some weekly, which cover the stories that are of mostly local interest, like the new police chief and the construction work on Main Street and things like that.

Before news became so available on the internet, many people I knew got the major state daily paper and the major local daily paper, because the focus on the news was so different that they needed both to keep abreast of the news.

There are some tabloids in the US--The National Enquirer and the Sun are examples. These are sold in supermarket checkout lines and newsstands.

[Thipu1]

In NYC we have three daily papers.

The New York Times
The New York Post
The Daily News.

There's also the Wall Street Journal and Newsday.  The latter is based in Long Island but is popular in the city because of the quality of its journalism.

International news is mostly the province of the Times although the Post and the News have a reasonable amount. 

We also have the Financial Times and USA Today readily available. 

There are free, weekly papers tailored to various neighborhoods.  Many of the articles are thinly disguised ads for restaurants and shops.  Still, there's decent coverage of local issues, sports and cultural events. 

[Bethalize]

This is a good time to post this linke: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

Still so relevant!

[Thipu1]

It's a little odd that non-local papers aren't delivered in a more timely fashion on land. 

Although it's less common than it used to be, ships often deliver an eight page condensation of newspapers to cabins.  These are geared to the nationality of the passenger.  Americans receive the NY Times.  Canadians receive the Toronto Globe & Mail.  People from the UK receive the Times.  We've also seen papers in French, German and Spanish. 

These condensations include international and national news.  Space is devoted to finance, sports and, of course, the daily puzzle.  There's also usually a column or two.  It's amazing how much they can pack into eight pages.  The papers are delivered in time for breakfast and the news is current.

Perhaps these have become less common because most ships get CNN but it's a homey way to keep in touch.     

[elephantschild]

I know of two exceptions to the above - the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.  As far as I can tell both are printed in many cities for prompt delivery nation wide.  The Wall Street Journal only covers financial news.  USA today tries to be a national newspaper, so it doesn't cover any area of the US very well.

However, a lot of the content in smaller newspapers especially, but even in large newspapers, comes from places like the Associated Press or Reuters.  Typically, news that is international or national will not come from local reporters.  Most of the columnists in the Op-Ed pages will be nationally syndicated as well, although there may be some local contributors every so often.  Only newspapers as large as the New York Times or Washington Post actually employ Op-Ed columnists directly, and those people are usually the ones whose columns show up in other newspapers.

Since so much of the content in most newspapers isn't actually produced by the newspaper itself, they tend not to "lean" especially obviously in one direction or another.  There are exceptions to that (which I won't name here, to avoid contention), but most newspapers' editorial boards have political leanings that become obvious during election season.  Editorial boards typically endorse specific candidates running for office, and who they endorse can tell you a lot about what their political views are.

Oh, I just saw this thread!

I work for a mid-size daily. We have a rather small editorial staff, including a managing editor, sports editor, features editor and reporters. I'm a bit editor, a bit reporter, a bit proofreader ... even a bit designer ... I've held a number of roles, which is typical at small dailies these days.

All our international/national copy does come from the AP, generally a few pages if we're lucky. We do employ columnists (of which I am one), but no one's "just" a columnist. Just won't fly in this day and age.

Our editorial board does make endorsements. We must be doing something right, because we've been accused of leaning both ways, in the same election season!

A lot of people see the small dailies as just stepping stones on the way to the big guns. I like them, myself. I'm telling stories people will actually care about, because they see their friends and neighbors and children ... even their enemies ... in them. Out in public,  I get "recognized" from time to time, usually in a good way. It's still weird to me, but I like that I'm making a connection.

If I can answer something, please ask!

[Ferrets]

My beloved TVTropes' British Newspapers page also has good summaries of the main publications. (You can also read the Grauniad Guardian online for free here.

("It's not like we're the Independent: we can't just stick a headline saying CRUELTY then stick a picture of a dolphin or a whale underneath." - The Thick of It)

Could I also ask the question whether they have much foreign news? I was surprised in Canada that the papers I looked at had at most two pages of news from the rest of the world. I may just have been unlucky in my choices.

Depends on the publication: the broadsheets - the Times, Guardian, and Independent, etc. - have a decent amount. (I've linked the 'World news' tags there for the last two: they're not behind a paywall.)

This is a good time to post this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

Still so relevant!

I was just about to quote that! Still relevant indeed.

[Barney girl]

My beloved TVTropes' British Newspapers page also has good summaries of the main publications. (You can also read the Grauniad Guardian online for free here.

("It's not like we're the Independent: we can't just stick a headline saying CRUELTY then stick a picture of a dolphin or a whale underneath." - The Thick of It)

Could I also ask the question whether they have much foreign news? I was surprised in Canada that the papers I looked at had at most two pages of news from the rest of the world. I may just have been unlucky in my choices.

Depends on the publication: the broadsheets - the Times, Guardian, and Independent, etc. - have a decent amount. (I've linked the 'World news' tags there for the last two: they're not behind a paywall.)

This is a good time to post this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

Still so relevant!

I was just about to quote that! Still relevant indeed.

Thanks, but I'm British and get the Independent, so I was asking about the other side of the Atlantic re world news

[Ferrets]

Thanks, but I'm British and get the Independent, so I was asking about the other side of the Atlantic re world news

Oops, sorry! I confused you with another (US) poster there.