British Newspapers

British Newspapers

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 or a bookstall. 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.

Britain has two kinds of national newspaper: the quality papers and the tabloids. The qualities, often called broadsheets because they are printed on large pages, 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, obituaries, listings of television and radio programmes, theatre and cinema shows, a crossword, comic strips, advertisements and the weather forecast. The main quality dailies are The Times and the Daily Telegraph, which support the political right, The Guardian, which is on the political left, The Independent , and the Financial Times. People choose a paper that reflects their own political opinions. National Sundays papers include the Sunday Times, The Observer and The Independent on Sunday. They have more pages than the dailies, supplements on, for example, motoring and the arts, and a colour magazine.

The popular have a smaller page size and report news in less depth. They concentrate on human-interest stories, and often discuss the personal lives of famous people. Some have page-three girls, photographs of half-naked young women. Many people disapprove of the populars, and they are sometimes called 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, sells more copies than any other newspaper in Britain.

There are about 1500 local papers, many of which are weekly. 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 people's homes. A few people do not like them and put up a notice on their door saying "No free papers, thank you".

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