NEWSPAPERS
IN BRITAIN
All
newspapers in Britain, daily or Sunday ones, can broadly he divided into the
quality press and the popular press. The quality newspapers are also known as
“heavies” and they usually deal with home and overseas news, with detailed and
extensive coverage of sports and cultural events. Besides they also carry
financial reports, travel news and book and film reviews.
The popular press or the “populars” are also known as tabloids as they are
smaller in size being halfsheet in format. Some people also call them the
“gutter press” offering news for the people less interested in daily detailed
news reports. They are characterised by large headlines, carry a lot of big
photographs, concentrate on the personal aspects of news, with reports of the
recent sensational and juicy bits of events, not excluding the Royal family.
The language of a tabloid is much more colloquial, if not specific, than that
of quality newspapers.
Here is a possibly witty though true classification of English newspapers:
“The
Times” is read by
the people who run the country;
“The
Mirror” is read by
the people who think they run the country;
“The
Guardian” is read
by the people who think about running the country;
“The
Mail” is read by
wives of the people who run the country;
“The
Daily Telegraph” is
read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be;
“The
Express” is read by
the people who think it is still run as it used to be;
“The
Sun” is read by the
people who don’t care who runs the country as long as the naked girl at page
three is attractive.
In Britain today there are four nationwide quality papers: “The Times”, “The
Daily Telegraph”, “The Guardian” and “The Independent”. “The Daily Mail”, “The
Daily Mirror”, “The Sun”, “The Daily Express” and “The Daily Star” are usually
considered to be “populars”.
“The
Times” founded in
1785, is read by the minority of people today. It has a rather small
circulation, but its influence is greater than its circulation figures (100,000
copies a day). It is an establishment newspaper, read by lawyers, politicians,
and businessmen, by all those who work in the government at large. It is not an
organ of the Conservative Party, but still is rather conservative in views it
expresses, though it is reliable and unbiased and claims to be politically
independent.
However, “The Times”, as many Englishmen stress themselves, always supports the
government in power, the bureaucracy, because the bureaucracy in Britain, they
say, does not change when the general elections take place. It is, thus, the
newspaper for the upper echelon of the civil service.
“The
Daily Telegraph”,
founded in 1855, is a very conservative paper. However, it has a circulation
twice as big as that of “The Times”, “The Guardian” or “The Independent”. It has
a nickname – “The Torygraph” after the nickname “Tory” of the Conservative
Party. This newspaper has rather a comprehensive news and sports coverage. Some
say it has a more objective reporting of what is going on in the world than any
other quality newspaper. It is right of centre and has always supported the
Conservative Party.
It is notable that although newspapers are normally associated with a
particular political viewpoint, either left or right, most of them have no
formal or legal links with political parties.
“The
Guardian” has a
slightly bigger circulation than “The Times”. It is a liberal newspaper, noted
for its lively reporting and campaigning support for “worthy causes” such as
education, medical reforms, the problems of aging people and retirees,
protection of the environment, etc. It also claims to be politically
independent, but it is left of centre and formally supports the Liberal Party
of Britain. Some British people say that the reporting of “The Guardian” is
biased and trendy, concentrating mostly on things like fashions, homosexuals,
etc., but still it is enjoyed by its readers.
“The
Independent” was
founded in 1986 and has rapidly acquired a reputation for its excellent news
coverage, intelligent reports, informal commentaries, and a good balanced sense
of humour.
“The
Sun”, founded in
1964, has a circulation of around four million and outsells all other
“populars”.
“The
Daily Mirror” with
a circulation of about three million, was founded in 1903 and has always
traditionally supported the Labour Party. Both “The Daily Mail” and “The
Daily Express” have circulations of about a million and a half, and were
founded in 1900 and 1896 respectively. Of the above mentioned newspapers, The
Mail is the most sophisticated of the others. The populars as a rule,
however, express, though they are mass circulation papers, no news. There you
will find leading articles about murders, games, bingo and lotteries. Because
they are in constant competition with each other, and want to sell more copies
than their competitors in an effort to increase the readership and circulation,
they actually all have nude girls in unconventional poses on page three or
seven, devote much room to advertising holidays, vacation tours, etc.
Actually
all newspapers in Britain, both the quality and popular ones, have their sister
Sunday issues. Thus, “The Sunday Times” leads the field in the Sunday
qualities. It has a circulation of over a million and is known for its
excellent reporting in eight separate sections: a main news section and others
devoted to sports news review, business, the arts, job advertisements, fashion
and travel as well as book reviews. It was founded in 1822 and is right of
centre.
“The
Observer” is the
oldest Sunday paper. It was founded in 1791 and today has a circulation of
around half a million and is politically moderate in views.
Founded in
1961 “The Sunday Telegraph” is more right-wing and its circulation has
been steadily declining.
The
best-selling Sunday popular newspaper is “The News of the World”. Its
circulation is over five million, and it has a reputation for its detailed
reports of crime and sex stories but also for its sports coverage.
“The
Sunday Mirror”
offers a lot of photographs and much gossip.
Other Sunday mass papers resemble their daily equivalents in style, in coverage
and colour.
In general,
however, English people themselves, though slightly sniffy and condescending
about their “populars”, underline that the quality of newspapers in Great
Britain of late is much better than 20 years ago. They argue that it is much
lower if they take the example of “The Times” newspaper, which was taken over
by Rupert Murdoch in the early eighties. He is the owner of News International
and is among the people who have control over the press. Rupert Murdoch also
owns “The Sun”, which is, as it has already been stressed, a very low
quality newspaper. To increase readership into “The Times” he gradually
increases a lot of techniques in it similar to those he introduced in “The Sun”
paper.
Most people in Great Britain perceive the press in Great Britain as objective,
since they claim that there is no overt censorship, no overt bias in reporting
the news, and that there is a wide choice of newspapers apart from the national
dailies.
There are a lot of different regional daily papers in Britain as well. One can
mention the following “The Scotsman” and “The Yorkshire Post”.
There are also local weekly papers and many London and local papers delivered
or distributed free and paid for entirely from advertising. Thus in Britain one
can find newspapers of every political colour, from the far left to the far
right. There are several socialist newspapers on sale each week, for example, “Socialist
Worker”, and many others. Most people are satisfied that there is a free and
objective press. They say that the British press is also investigative,
uncovers scandals in the governments, and if they are not satisfied with what
they read in “The Times” and think it is not true, they have the opportunity to
go and pick up another newspaper and compare reportings.
By Natalya Predtechenskaya
Best-selling daily newspapers as of 2002,
with circulation:
1. The Sun 3,541,002 United Kingdom (tabloid)
2. The Daily Mail 2,342,982 United Kingdom (tabloid)
3. The Daily Mirror 2,148,058 United Kingdom (tabloid)
10. The Daily Telegraph 923,815 United Kingdom
11. The Daily Express 916,055 United Kingdom (tabloid)
13. The Daily Star 819,203 United Kingdom (tabloid)
Although the British have traditionally read large
quantities of newspapers, newspaper circulation has fallen dramatically over
the last few years. We read 20% fewer papers today than in 1990.
Our papers fall in to 2 categories - broadsheet (so
called because the pages are very big) and tabloid (the page size is more
magazine size). The broadsheet papers are the more cerebral ones, the tabloids
are the ones that have been giving the nation a bad name, but which are read in
the greatest numbers.
If you want to get any foreign news from a British
paper I suggest you read the Times, Telegraph or Independent - and even in
these the baseball results will only be given the prominence they deserve (you
will find the American papers take a parallel view on say cricket scores)
The Times not quite the Thunderer of old
The Telegraph news from a right wing angle
The Guardian news from a left wing point of view
The Independent claims to be from the centre
The Financial Times not much news, more financial
news
The Scotsman a national Scots paper
Daily Mail would claim to be the intellectual
tabloid
Daily Express a bit to the right of the Mail
The Sun read if you have an interest in busty
ladies
The Mirror more information on busty ladies