NEWSPAPERS IN BRITAIN

National daily newspaper circulation November 2002
 Source: Audit Bureau of Circulations

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.