British Newspaper Industry

Many British families buy a national or local newspaper every day. Some have it delivered to their home by a paper boy or paper girl; others buy it from a newsagent (= a shop that sells newspapers, magazines, sweets, etc.) or a bookstall. Many people read a newspaper online and the number doing this is increasing very fast. Some newspapers charge for their online edition. National dailies are published each morning except Sunday. Competition between them is fierce. Local daily papers, which are written for people in a particular city or region, are sometimes published in the morning but more often in the early evening.

The US has only one national newspaper, USA Today. The rest are local. A few newspapers from large cities, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, are read all over the country. The International New York Timesformerly theInternational Herald Tribune is published outside the US and is read by Americans abroad. Many Americans subscribe to a newspaper which is delivered to their house. This costs less than buying it in a shop. Papers can also be bought in bookshops and supermarkets and most newspapers have online versions.

In Britain the newspaper industry is still sometimes called Fleet Street, the name of the street in central London where many newspapers used to have their offices. Britain has two kinds of national newspaper: the quality papers and the tabloids, now sometimes called the red tops. The qualities were also called the broadsheets because they were printed on large pages, but are now often in tabloid size which is half the size of a broadsheet. They report national and international news and are serious in tone. They have editorials which comment on important issues and reflect the political views of the paper's editor. They also contain financial and sports news, features (= articles), obituaries (= life histories of famous people who have just died), listings, crosswords, cartoons and comic strips, advertisementsand the weather forecast.

The tabloids report news in less depth. They concentrate on human-interest stories (= stories about people), and often discuss the personal lives of famous people. People who disapprove of the tabloids call them the gutter press. The most popular are The Sun, The Mirror, The Express and The Daily Mail. The News of the World, a Sunday tabloid, at one time sold more copies than any other newspaper in Britain, but it was closed down in 2011, after it had been accused of phone hacking.

There are also local papers, many of which are weeklies (= published once a week). They contain news of local events and sport, carry advertisements for local businesses, and give details of houses, cars and other items for sale. Some are paid for by the advertisements they contain and are delivered free to