Mass Media: The Press

Basic information:

Britain is a nation of avid newspaper readers. More than 16 million people buy a copy of a morning paper and countless Britons spend part of every Sunday with the latest issue of their favourite Sunday paper. As there is keen competition between the mass-circulation dailies and weeklies, reporters are constantly in search of scoops to raise their circulation figures.

Britain's newspaper market is very differentiated. In addition to the national Sunday papers (The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, News of the World, etc.) there are five national 'quality' dailies and seven national 'popular' dailies (the latter are also called tabloids). The quality newspapers, which are serious in content and approach and large in size, appeal chiefly to the educated classes, whereas the smaller tabloids with their many photos and striking headlines cater mainly for the less intellectual 'man or woman in the street'. Besides all these national papers there are many local dailies as well as weekly and monthly magazines and journals.

(average circulation figures for 1993)

Some of the down-market tabloids are The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express etc., all of which have millions of readers.

To remain competitive, tabloids often entice readers with shocking and sensational stories, lurid details of scandals and crimes, pin-ups etc., which explains why they are sometimes called the 'gutter press' or 'yellow press'. Serious papers try to maintain a balance between the freedom of the press and the public's 'right to know' on the one hand and the journalistic code of ethics and the individual's right to privacy on the other.

In the USA there is no newspaper that, strictly speaking, can be defined as a national paper. Only The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal are of nation-wide importance. However, there are numerous local and regional papers as well as a wide variety of periodicals and news magazines (Time, Newsweek) etc.

In both Britain and the USA the press has undergone radical changes over the last few decades. As more and more small papers were bought up by powerful publishers, huge newspaper chains emerged: a trend towards concentration typical not only of the press but of the mass media in general. Another trend which has had a great impact on newspapers is that of syndication. Syndicated columns, cartoons etc. by prominent journalists and cartoonists are published by many different US newspa­pers. Thanks to such news-reporting services as Reuters and AP (Associated Press) the collection of information and coverage of foreign news have become more efficient. More recently, new technology has replaced the traditional typesetters and printing presses.

Apart from some minor differences serious newspapers basically offer the same things: journalists cover events of national and international im­portance on the front page or back page, columnists write fashion, motoring or financial columns, there are special features on topics like education and gardening, sports reporters inform the readers on the sports pages, cartoonists amuse them with comic strips and cartoons and critics write reviews of the latest plays, books etc.

Additional features are leading articles (leaders) written by the editor, correspondence columns with 'letters to the editor', the latest installment of a serialized novel, notices of births, deaths and marriages, crossword puzzles horoscopes and 'situations vacant' and 'situations wanted' advertisements. Considerable space is devoted to ads of various kinds, including classified ads, as newspapers could not survive without advertising revenues.

The publishing house has its papers printed and then taken to the newsagents. Subscribers' papers are delivered to their homes, as their subscription includes this service.