newspaper
news·paper [newspaper newspapers] BrE [ˈnjuːzpeɪpə(r)] NAmE [ˈnuːzpeɪpər] noun
1. countable a set of large printed sheets of paper containing news, articles, advertisements, etc. and published every day or every week
•a daily/weekly newspaper
•a local/national newspaper
•an online newspaper
•a newspaper article
• I read about it in the newspaper.
•a newspaper cutting
• She works for the local newspaper (= the company that produces it).
•newspaper proprietors
see also ↑paper
2. uncountable paper taken from old newspapers
•Wrap all your glasses in newspaper.
Culture:
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 (= a shop that sells newspapers, ↑magazines, sweets, etc.) or a bookstall. Some people read a newspaper online. 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 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 often 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. 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 of television and ↑radio programmes, theatre and cinema shows, a ↑crossword, ↑comic strips, ↑advertisements and the weather forecast.
The main quality dailies are ↑Times and the ↑Daily Telegraph, which support the political right, ↑Guardian, which is on the political left, ↑Independent and ↑Financial Times. People choose a paper that reflects their own political opinion. Sunday papers include ↑Sunday Times, ↑Observer and Independent on Sunday. The Sunday and Saturday editions of papers have more pages than the dailies, supplements (= extra sections) on, for example, motoring and the arts, and a colour magazine.
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 ↑Sun, ↑Mirror, ↑Express and ↑Daily Mail. ↑News of the World, a Sunday tabloid, sells more copies than any other newspaper in Britain.
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 people’s homes. Some cities also have a daily paper published in the evening, for example, ↑Evening Standard in London.
A daily newspaper from a medium-sized US city has between 50 and 75 pages, divided into different sections. The most important stories are printed on the front page, which usually has the beginnings of four or five articles, and colour photographs. The articles continue inside. The rest of the first section contains news stories, an opinion page with editorials, and letters to the editor, written by people who read the paper. Another section contains local news. The sport section is near the end of the paper, with the features section. This contains comics and also advice columns, such as ↑Dear Abby. There are advertisements throughout the paper.
Tabloids contain articles about famous people but do not report the news. They are displayed in supermarkets, and many people read them while they are waiting to pay.
On Sundays newspapers are thicker. There are usually fewer news stories but more articles analysing the news of the past week and many more features, including a colour section of comics.
Newspapers get material from several sources. Staff reporters write about national or local news. Major newspapers also have their own foreign correspondents throughout the world. Others get foreign news from press agencies or wire services, such as ↑Associated Press or ↑Reuters. Some papers have their own features writers. In the US features are usually syndicated, which means that one newspaper in each area can buy the right to print them. The editor decides what stories to include each day but the publisher or owner has control over general policy. Newspaper owners are very powerful and are sometimes called press barons. The most famous of these is Rupert Murdoch.
Thesaurus:
newspaper noun C
•a national newspaper
paper • • newsletter • • daily • • weekly • |BrE broadsheet • |sometimes disapproving tabloid •
a local newspaper/paper/newsletter/daily/weekly/tabloid
a national newspaper/paper/daily/broadsheet
read a newspaper/paper/newsletter
Newspaper or paper? Newspaper can only be shortened to paper when it is clear what is being talked about:
•a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings
✗ a scrapbook of paper cuttings
Example Bank:
•Do you take a daily newspaper?
•Have you got a copy of yesterday's newspaper?
•He launched a weekly newspaper called ‘The Challenge’.
•Her article appeared in the Saturday newspaper.
•Savage, writing in an Auckland newspaper, quotes an eminent academic.
•She got a job on a national newspaper.
•She sued the newspaper for publishing photos of her on the beach.
•The company is a strong contender in the race for the Scottish newspaper group.
•The newspaper carried advertisements for several products.
•The newspaper comes out every Saturday.
•The newspapers speculated that the star was about to propose to his girlfriend.
•Which newspaper do you buy?
•an article in a local newspaper
•newspapers owned by the Tribune Company
•today's edition of the newspaper
•I read about it in the newspaper.
•She works for the local newspaper.
•There has always been concern about newspaper proprietors owning television stations.
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