The British Press

The contents The British people are great readers. A bit of history. 2 categories of British papers.2 categories of British papers. The popular newspapers (tabloids).The popular newspapers (tabloids). “Quality" papers. The Times. General information. The collection of the newspapers in the British Museum.The collection of the newspapers in the British Museum. War news.War news. Modern newspapers. Knowledge is a power.

The population of the United Kingdom, or Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is now over 50,000,000. About 30,000,000 newspapers are sold every day!30,000,000 newspapers

The British people, therefore, are great readers of newspapers. There are few homes to which one newspaper is not delivered every morning. Many households have two, or even three, newspapers every day.

English newspaper writing dates from the 17th century. At the close of the 16th century short news pamphlets began to appear. Any such publication either presented news from only one source or dealt with one specific subject. News pamphlets appeared only from time to time and саnnot be classed as newspapers, though they were unquestionably the immediate forerunners of the British press.English newspaper writing dates from the 17th century.

The first of any regular series of English newspapers was the Weekly News which first appeared on May 23, It lasted for some twenty years till in 1641 it ceased publication.

The 17th century saw the rise of a number of other news sheets which, with varying success, struggled on in the teeth of discouragement and restrictions imposed by the Crown.

With the introduction of a strict licensing system many such sheets were suppressed, and the Government, in its turn, set before the public a paper of its own — The London Gazette, first published on February 5, The paper was a semi- weekly and carried official information, royal decrees, news from abroad, and advertisements.

The first English daily newspaper — the Daily Courant — was brought out on March 11, The paper carried news, largely foreign, and no comment, the latter being against the principles of the publisher, as was stated in the first issue of his paper.

Thus the early English newspaper was principally a vehicle of information. Commentary as a regular feature found its way into the newspapers later.

But as far back as the middle of the 18th century the British newspaper was very much like what it is today, carrying on its pages news, both foreign and domestic, advertisements, announcements and articles containing comments.

It took the English newspaper more than a century to establish a style and a standard of its own. And it is only by the 19th century that newspaper English may be said to have developed into a system of language media, forming a separate functional style.

Fleet Street has been the home of the British press for 300 years. Here are published almost all of Britain's national newspapers.

Here also are the headquarters of many magazines, foreign and provincial press bureaus, international news agencies.

The British Press is like no other! Here is a brief guide to the characters of the major daily national newspapers that you'll be able to buy all around the United Kingdom.

British 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.2 categories

The popular newspapers (tabloids) naturally have much larger circulations than the serious newspapers. The number of daily newspapers published in London is only nine or ten, but their total circulation is about 16,000,000.

The "popular" papers are smaller in size, with lots of pictures, big headlines and short articles. They are easy to read and often contain little real information. They usually have stories about ordinary people and events which are included because they are amusing or odd. Examples of this type of newspapers are "The Daily Mail“, "The Sun“ and "The Daily Mirror“."popular" papers

The Sun is a tabloid daily newspaper published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland with the highest circulation of any daily English- language newspaper in the world, standing at 3,107,412 copies daily in the first half of 2006.

The Daily Mail is a British tabloid newspaper first published in It is Britain's second biggest selling daily newspaper after The Sun and arguably the most conservative in viewpoint. The Mail was originally a broadsheet, but switched to its current tabloid format on 3 May 1971, on the 75th anniversary of its founding.

The Daily Mirror, often referred to simply as The Mirror, is a British tabloid daily newspaper. It is the only British national paper to have consistently supported the Labour Party since During a couple of periods in its history — 1985 to 1987 and 1997 to 2002 — the front-page masthead was changed to The Mirror.

On the picture is the first copy of the Daily Mirror.

The Daily Express is a conservative, middle- market British tabloid newspaper. It is the flagship title of Express Newspapers and is currently owned by Richard Desmond.As of February 2007, it has a circulation of 761,637.

The more serious reader, who wants to read about politics and foreign af­fairs reads "quality" papers. These papers, such as "The Daily Telegraph," "The Times "and "The Guardian" have diffe­ rent pages for home news, foreign affaire, feature articles, fashion, business, sport and so on. "quality" papers

Guardian Unlimited is the web version of the daily paper. The Guardian is a left- leaning broadsheet, good at covering social and political issues and international news.

The Daily Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in It is one of the few remaining daily newspapers printed in the Broadsheet format in the United Kingdom, as most other broadsheet publications have converted to the smaller tabloid/compact or Berliner formats. Its sister paper, The Sunday Telegraph, was founded in 1961.

People in Britain buy more papers on Sunday than on weekdays. The Sunday papers have higher circulation than the dailies. For example The Weekly Telegraph (The Sunday version of The Daily Telegraph) is really popular, too.

The Independent is a British compact newspaper published by Tony Reilly's Independent News & Media. It is nicknamed the Indie, with the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, being the Sindie. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily newspapers, with a circulation of 253,737 in November The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards.

The Observer is a United Kingdom newspaper published on Sundays. Overall slightly to the right of its daily sister paper The Guardian, it takes a liberal/social democratic line on most issues. The first issue, published on 4 December 1791 by W.S Bourne, was the world's first Sunday newspaper.

The London newspaper that is best known outside Great Britain is probably "The Times" It began in 1785, and has a high reputation for reliable news and serious comment on the news.

It is an independent paper, not giving its support to a particular political party. Its leading articles (or "leaders," as they are usually called) give the opinions of its editorial staff, not those of the owners of the paper.

"The Times," of course, does not publish the strip cartoons that are so common in the cheaper and popular papers. It does, however, publish a cross­word puzzle every day, with clues that are both clever and amusing.

The correspondence columns of "The Times" are always interesting and often amusing. Most of the letters are on serious subjects, but from time to time there will be a long correspondence on a subject that is not at all serious, perhaps on a new fashion of dress, or the bad manners of the youn­ger generation compared with the manners of thirty years ago.

Times - slightly conservative, the oldest British national daily. The Times is a right- leaning broadsheet owned by News International. Times Online gives free access to today's news.The archive is an invaluable resource.

The Sunday papers are not always the Sunday editions of the daily papers even if, as is sometimes the case, the owners are the same. For example, the “Sunday Times” has no connection with the daily paper called “The Times”.

In addition to the London dailies, there are other papers, published in the provinces. Many of these are independent, and the best of them sell throughout the whole country, in competition with the London papers.In addition

Although the British have traditionally read large quantities of newspapers, newspaper circulation has fallen dramatically over the last few years. British people read 20% fewer papers today than in 1990.

Most of the papers have a political viewpoint. They give opinions and news which favour a political party or group.

There are the morning papers and the evening papers. The morning papers are on sale early in the morning. The evening papers begin to appeal' during the morning, and new editions appear every two or three hours until the final edition comes out in the evening.

The London evening papers, the "Star“, the "Evening News" and the "Evening Standard“, are sold not only at the ordinary newsagents' shops and station bookstalls, but also at busy street coners.

The evening papers sell well because they print, throughout the day, the latest sports results. The sports pages also give advice to those who bet on results. Those people who have made bets on horse- races are anxious to know whether the horse on which they have bet has come in first.

In winter people are interested in the scores of the big football matches, and in summer in the latest scores of the county cricket matches. During the football season the papers provide information to help those who try to win large sums of money in the football pools.

A modern newspaper could not be sold at a profit without advertisements. A single copy costs more to produce than the price paid by the reader.

A newspaper with a large circulation may cost about f 100,000 a week to produce. About a quarter of this sum is received trom the business turns who advertise in its pages.

The British Museum began collecting newspapers systematically during the 1820s.British Museum

The British Museum Newspaper Repository.

British Library Newspapers building in the 1980s.

Black & White 13 May 1911 From the collection of the British museum

In contrast to most of the other countries, British publishers created a large number of new specialized newsmagazines that dealt specifically with war news. war news

One of many new British magazines was called 'the Illustrated War News'. As the title hints, this magazine was mainly intended for the publiction of war illustrations: quality photographs and drawings.

Also - 'The War Illustrated' taken haphazardly from the years 1915, 1916 and 1917.

It is a cover page from the 'The War Pictorial', an internationally published British magazine. It was a war photo publication; only photographs with an occasional illustration were printed along with short captions.

The Old Newspaper Reading Room in the British Museum, Bloomsbury Sell's Dictionary of the World's Press 1893.

Cover of Newspapers by John Westmancoat, The British Library Board.

The modern newspaper carries material of an extremely diverse character. On the pages of a newspaper one finds not only news and comment on it, press reports and articles, advertisements and announcements, but also stories and poems, crossword puzzles, chess problems and the like.modern newspaper

Test (to receive a good mark). Good Luck!

1) Which century did news pamphlets begin to appear? a) 15 th b) 16 th c) 17 th

2) What was the first of any regular newspapers? a) The Weekly News b) The Times c) The Guardian

3) What century did the British newspaper become like what it is today? a) 19 th b) middle of the 18 th c) the beginning of 20 th

4) What street is the home of the British Press? a) Wall Street b) Bobby Sands Street c) Fleet Street

5) Why are the broadsheets called so? a) because of the big pages b) because of a serious information c) because of a white pages colour

6) What newspapers have larger circulation? a) serious b) popular c) both have the same

7) Which of these newspapers is a “popular” one? a) The Guardian b) The Sun c) The Times

8) What is the other name for broadsheets? a) “graduate” papers b) “quality” papers c) “brand” papers

9) Does the “Sunday Times” have connection with the daily called “The Times” a) yes b) no c) they are the same

10) What viewpoint do most of the papers have? a) political b) cultural c) sport

11) What is collected in the British Museum since 1820? a) the newspapers headlines b) best known journalist’s autographs c) old newspapers

12) Which of the war newspapers did you see in the presentation? a) from the period of the Second World War b) from the period of the First World War c) from the period of the War with Israel

so, I wish you to get your 12!