If you get on a bus or catch a train in Britain, especially during the morning and evening “rush hour”, you’ll see a lot of people reading newspapers. The press tells us about various political views, interest and levels of education. Papers are usually divided into “quality” papers which are serious with long, informative articles and “popular” which have smaller size. They are less serious and contain more human interest stories than news.
More daily newspapers, national and regional are sold in Great Britain than in most other developed countries. There are about 135 daily papers and Sunday papers, 2000 weekly papers and about 100 papers produced by members of ethnic groups.
A lot of people buy a morning paper, an evening paper and a couple of Sunday papers. On an average day two out of three people over the age of 15 read a national morning paper, about three out of four read a Sunday paper. So it’s not surprising to learn that national newspapers have a circulation of 15.8 million copies on weekdays and 19 million on Sundays.
Newspapers are almost always financially independent of any political party. However, during general election campaigns many papers recommend their readers to vote for a particular political party. Ownership of the national London and regional daily newspapers is concentrated in the hands of large press publishing groups.
Questions:
1. What do press tell us?
2. What kind of papers do you know?
3. “Popular” papers are usually smaller that “quality” ones, aren’t they?
4. What can be read in “quality” newspaper?
5. Who is the owner of newspapers in Britain?
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