Newspaper is a publication devoted chiefly to presenting and commenting on the news. Newspapers provide a good means of keeping informed on current events. They also play a role in shaping public opinion. Most newspapers serve a geographic community—a city, region, or nation—or a community of interest, such as business and finance. Newspapers create and facilitate community conversations by providing information and by engaging readers through social media and other forums online.
A large daily newspaper provides a great variety of information. News stories cover the latest developments in such fields as government, politics, sports, science, business, and the arts. Other news stories report crimes, disasters, and special events of human interest. Editorials and opinion columns comment on controversial issues. Informative feature articles examine a wide range of subjects, including psychology, fashion, health, and child care.
Most newspapers have both print and online editions. Online editions may be accessed through a newspaper’s website or smartphone app (application). An online edition might have features not found in the print version, such as videos, interactive graphics, and games, as well as newsletters delivered by email. Other items, such as comic strips and puzzles, might be available only in the print paper. The online versions of most major newspapers use a digital system called a paywall to ensure that only paid subscribers can access certain online content. Producing a daily newspaper requires great speed and efficiency. Reporters, editors, and photographers work under the constant pressure of deadlines. A large daily also employs many other workers, including advertising salespeople, artists, printing-press operators, truck drivers, and website designers.
This article describes the kinds, organization, production, and business operations of newspapers in the United States. It then discusses newspapers in other countries and traces the history of newspapers. For information on major issues in U.S. journalism, see Journalism.
Kinds of newspapers
Newspapers are regularly published on a daily or weekly basis in printed form, online form, or both. Online newspapers may include e-editions, which are optimized for electronic reading devices. Print editions are printed on coarse paper called newsprint. There are two major newspaper sizes—standard and tabloid. A standard-sized newspaper is printed on paper known as broadsheet. Broadsheet pages are about 12 inches (30 centimeters) wide by 20 inches (51 centimeters) or more deep. Tabloids are smaller and can range widely in size.
The three main kinds of newspapers are (1) daily newspapers, (2) weekly newspapers, and (3) special-interest newspapers.
Daily newspapers
print world, national, state, and local news. They also carry editorials, opinion columns, feature articles, and entertainment items. Big-city dailies print many stories on social and political issues, such as the quality of schools and the efficiency of government. Many metropolitan papers include one or more sections of suburban news several times a week. The United States has about 1,200 daily newspapers. Only a few large cities have more than one daily newspaper.
Additional features and more advertising make Sunday newspapers much larger than weekday editions. Numerous Sunday papers have special sections on such topics as entertainment, finance, and travel. Many also include a Sunday magazine and comics in color.
In the United States, most daily newspapers chiefly serve a particular metropolitan area or local region. Many other countries, however, have newspapers with a national circulation. In these countries, most governmental decisions are made on the national level. However, in the United States, many governmental decisions are made locally. Largely for that reason, there are few national newspapers in the United States. Instead, the country has many small newspapers that report local happenings.
In the United States, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post serve a national audience. Other notable dailies in the United States include The Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, The Detroit News, the Los Angeles Times, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, The Miami Herald, the Daily News and the New York Post of New York City, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and The Seattle Times.
Weekly newspapers,
in general, serve much smaller areas than daily papers and publish news of a more personal nature. In small communities, many people know one another and take great interest in the activities of their friends and neighbors. Weddings, births, and deaths are major news items. A fire or traffic accident gets front-page coverage in a weekly newspaper. Weeklies also report news of local business and politics. Most weekly print newspapers do not carry state, national, or world news. But weeklies often publish urgent news on a daily basis in their online editions.
Special-interest newspapers
print news of concern to particular groups. Many business associations and labor unions publish newspapers for their members. Newspapers printed in foreign languages serve foreign-born residents in big cities. Some newspapers specialize in news about African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and other ethnic groups. Special-interest papers may also focus on specific topics, such as sports or the arts. Many high schools and most colleges also have a newspaper of their own.
The staff of a newspaper
The number of people needed to produce a newspaper varies widely. The smallest weekly papers may have only 1 to 3 workers, who do everything from writing the news, to selling ads, to delivering the product. Some larger weeklies employ 10 to 30 people. The largest metropolitan dailies have 2,000 or more employees.
The staff of most dailies is headed by the publisher, who directs all the departments. The staff of such a paper is divided into three main departments: (1) the editorial department, (2) the business department, and (3) the pressroom.
The editorial department
is responsible for the news and features that the paper prints. The head of the department is called the editor in chief, executive editor, or simply editor. This individual must have a thorough knowledge of all phases of newspaper work and know how to deal well with people.
A managing editor helps the editor in chief direct the members of the editorial staff. Under the managing editor are assistant managing editors and news editors. Other editors have charge of news in certain areas. For example, most large dailies have a city editor, a suburban editor, a national editor, a feature editor, and an international editor. Each of the various sections and departments of the paper, such as the sports, arts, and financial sections, also has its own editor. Each editor supervises a staff of reporters, writers, photojournalists, and other workers. Some editors, such as the sports and financial editors, may write a daily column in addition to their supervisory duties. An art director works with the editors in planning the illustrations and photographs to accompany stories. The art director oversees a staff of artists and photographers. Engagement editors work to develop relationships with the newspaper’s online audience. These editors may suggest story ideas to editorial staff based on audience feedback. They also promote important or popular content through social media and by directly communicating with subscribers.
The editor in chief directs the news staff. In many cases, the publisher helps guide staff members who write opinion pieces. For that reason, a newspaper’s editorials often express the views of the publisher. Metropolitan dailies also employ special columnists to write columns of humor, advice, or general information.
The business department
tries to ensure that the paper makes a profit. A business manager heads the department with the help of an advertising manager, a circulation manager, and a promotion manager. The advertising manager directs a staff that sells advertising space to stores, manufacturers, and other businesses as well as classified ads to individuals and firms. The circulation manager supervises the distribution of the newspaper and manages subscriptions to both print and online editions. The promotion manager develops ways of drawing attention to the paper to attract new readers and advertisers. The business department also has accountants and bookkeepers to handle the financial records.
The pressroom,
sometimes called the mechanical department, prints the newspaper. A production manager directs the department’s operations. Some workers produce the printing plates from which the newspaper is printed. The printing-press operators lock the plates on the presses and print the papers. Mailroom personnel assemble the papers and turn them over to the circulation department.
How newspapers are produced
Gathering information
is the first step in the production of the news in a newspaper. A newspaper gets its news from two main sources: (1) its own reporters and photojournalists, and (2) news services.
Reporters
use interviews, research, and investigative techniques to gather information for their stories. They must have well-developed news judgment to sort out important stories from those with little public interest. Photojournalists research, report, and edit still photos and video.
A newspaper employs several kinds of reporters. Many reporters cover a specialty called a beat. Some beat reporters are assigned to particular locations, including city hall, police headquarters, and the criminal courts. Other beat reporters cover a particular subject, such as science, religion, education, or consumer affairs. Certain other reporters, called general assignment reporters, cover any story to which they are assigned or which they find on their own. 
The news staff of a big-city newspaper also includes investigative reporters as well as freelancers, who are also known as stringers. Investigative reporters search out and expose political corruption or other wrongdoing. They may work weeks or months to get a story or a series of stories. Stringers do not work full time for the newspaper, but they occasionally write a story for it.
Some metropolitan papers have a staff of reporters in the state capital. The largest papers also have a Washington, D.C., bureau and foreign correspondents in such cities as London, Paris, Moscow, and Tokyo.
News services.
Not even the largest newspapers can afford to have reporters in all the major cities of the United States and the world. As a result, newspapers depend on news services for at least part of their national and international news. The chief U.S. news service is the Associated Press (AP). The Associated Press has reporters throughout the United States and the world. Major news services in other countries include Agence France-Presse in France, Thomson Reuters in Canada and the United Kingdom, and TASS in Russia. News services were formerly known as wire services because they sent their stories by wire to printing devices called teletypewriters. Today, stories, photographs, graphics, and videos are sent electronically.
Many papers also get news from news syndicates. A news syndicate is owned by a newspaper or chain of newspapers with a large staff of reporters worldwide.
Newspapers also receive many press releases from private companies and government departments. An organization’s press release sometimes leads to major news coverage of the event it describes.
Writing and editing stories.
In writing a news story, reporters begin by giving the important facts in the first paragraph, which is called the lead. They then present details in the rest of the space given to the story by the city editor or news editor. The completed story goes to a copyeditor, or copyreader, who checks it for accuracy and writes a headline for it. The copyeditor may change the wording to make the story more readable. The copyeditor must also cut material if the story is too long. A proofreader checks the story for spelling and punctuation errors. 
Many stories are accompanied by photographs, charts, or illustrations. Some photos, especially those of major news events, come from news services. Most newspapers also have a staff of photographers who take pictures of local events.
Writing editorials and features.
A newspaper’s editorial writers hold meetings to select topics for editorials. They also decide what viewpoint to take in the editorials. Unlike a news story, an editorial expresses an opinion and tries to sway readers to that way of thinking.
Feature writers prepare stories on subjects they think would interest the newspaper’s readers. Common types of feature articles include interviews with famous entertainers, stories on unusual organizations, and descriptions of places to visit. Newspapers also get feature material from feature syndicates, which resemble news syndicates. Feature syndicates provide such items as political cartoons, comic strips, crossword puzzles, and columns on chess, gardening, and financial matters.
Preparing advertisements.
Newspapers carry two forms of advertising—display ads and classified ads. Most display ads include illustrations and may be as large as two pages. Some metropolitan newspapers add booklets of display ads, called inserts, to the newspaper. Many newspapers have a staff of graphic artists to help prepare display ads. Classified ads, also called want ads, usually appear in a separate section of the newspaper. Most consist of a few lines of print and advertise such things as used cars or apartments for rent. The classified section also includes legal notices for such items as trustee’s sales, which indicate that a property is to be sold at a public auction, and government requests for bids for services. 
Making up the pages.
Artists use computer layouts that enable artists to make precise measurements and to rearrange page contents quickly. Digital files representing the pages are transmitted electronically to an imagesetting or platesetting device, which produces the printing plates.
Printing the newspaper.
Most newspapers use a printing method called offset lithography. In offset, as it is usually called, the image to be printed is on the same level of the printing plate as the areas that do not print. Offset is done on rotary presses, which have cylinders that hold curved printing plates. The plate does not come into contact with the paper. Instead, the printed images are transferred—that is, offset—to a rubber “blanket” cylinder that then prints them on the paper. 
In one common method of producing a plate, the negative of a page is placed on a thin metal or plastic plate with a light-sensitive coating and exposed to bright light. The light passes through the transparent (image) parts of the negative and hardens the coating under these parts. The other parts of the negative block the light, and the coating under them remains soft. Workers treat the plate with a solution of developer and lacquer. The lacquer adheres only to the hardened image areas. The plate is washed and a gum is applied to thoroughly cleanse the nonimage areas so they will repel any ink. During printing, only the lacquered areas accept ink. 
Printers mount the plates on the rotary press. After all the plates have been made and are mounted on the press, the press goes into action. In the most commonly used kind of press, a large web (roll) of paper is drawn between the blanket cylinders, receiving the print images of all the plates. The printed pages are transferred to a machine that cuts the sheets and folds them into pages. Other machines place the different sections of the paper together and stack the newspapers into piles. 
Some newspapers are printed by methods other than offset. For more information on printing, see Printing (Methods of printing).
Producing the online newspaper.
A newspaper’s editors select whether to publish stories first in the online edition or the print edition. The decision often comes down to urgency. While a print edition publishes just once a day, online stories can be published minutes after an event. Editors and reporters may also decide to publish a story on social media sites even before it runs in the online newspaper. Updates and rewritten versions are common in online editions.
Online stories often include hyperlinks (text links) connecting to other stories or information, digital copies of original documents, audio clips of interviews, and interactive graphics. Reporters, copyeditors, and photo editors add these elements to a central content management system that helps organize the material.
In most metropolitan newspapers, all stories, including features or other nonurgent news, usually have some presence on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media sites. An engagement editor will schedule social media releases at times of high audience interest.
Business operations
Newspapers in the United States earn a large part of their income from the sale of advertising. Most newspapers get the rest of their income from sales of the print paper or subscriptions to online access. The syndication of news stories or features provides additional revenue for some large papers. A newspaper’s advertising department handles the sale of ads, and the circulation department manages the distribution and sales of the newspaper. Some special-interest newspapers are circulated without charge and earn all their income from advertising.
Advertising
fills much of the space in U.S. newspapers. Papers sell most of this space to local businesses and individuals. National firms buy the rest.
The advertising manager of a large newspaper directs division supervisors. The division supervisors have charge of various kinds of advertising, such as advertising for automobile dealers, department stores, and supermarkets. Each division supervisor has a staff of sales representatives who sell ads to businesses. Workers in the classified-ad department sell ads over the telephone. They also help people write their want ads. People may also purchase ads through a newspaper’s website.
Circulation.
Newspaper distribution is a complex operation. After the papers are printed and assembled, conveyor belts carry them to the mailroom. Most of the papers are grouped into bundles with plastic strapping. The rest are addressed for mailing. The bundles travel on chutes to a loading dock, where trucks wait to haul them to newsstands and distribution centers. 
National newspapers are printed simultaneously throughout the country. Communications satellites relay images of the newspaper pages to printing plants in major cities. Some large metropolitan papers have a central plant as well as plants in outlying areas that print the paper from satellite-relayed images.
The circulation manager oversees the distribution of papers and works with the promotion manager to try to increase the number of readers. Circulation managers are also responsible for managing subscriptions. Supervisors of city sales, suburban sales, and home delivery work under the circulation manager. District circulation supervisors look after sales in various areas of the city or suburbs. Independent newspaper carriers also make up an important part of the distribution system. They pick up papers at distribution centers and deliver them to homes in the city and suburbs.
Newspapers in other countries
Newspapers in most countries devote more of their stories to political and governmental affairs than to local events. Most have fewer ads and features than newspapers produced in the United States. 
Countries with traditionally high newspaper readership include Finland, Japan, Norway, and Sweden. Daily circulation for both China and India has grown dramatically since 2000. In general, circulations are larger in industrialized nations, but readership in developing nations has grown.
In most nations, the government controls to some extent what newspapers may publish. Governmental control of the news media is strongest in Communist nations. In these nations, the government owns and operates the media. Many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America severely restrict press freedom. In these countries, the government controls the press through censorship or through laws that make it dangerous to criticize the government. Only a small minority of nations allow newspapers to print any news they wish. Freedom of the press exists mainly in English-speaking nations, in most of the countries of Western Europe, and in Israel and Japan.
In Canada,
newspapers are similar to U.S. papers in size and content. The leading English-language dailies in Canada include The Gazette of Montreal and two Toronto papers—the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail. Le Journal de Montréal is Canada’s largest French-language daily.
In Europe,
the United Kingdom’s papers most closely resemble those of the United States and Canada. All the largest British newspapers have their main offices in London and are distributed nationally. They include the country’s most influential papers, The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times. The British papers with the highest circulations include the Daily Mail, the Daily Mirror, and The Sun.
From the 1800’s to the mid-1900’s, many newspapers in France, Denmark, Germany, and other parts of Europe were sponsored by a political party or associated with a special-interest group. Each of these papers wrote its news from a particular political viewpoint. Today, some major European papers have political leanings, but they report news from a basically neutral point of view.
Some French newspapers, such as the Paris papers Le Figaro and Le Monde, are known for their excellent coverage of the arts. Other French newspapers that are widely circulated include La Croix and Le Parisien. These two newspapers also are published in Paris.
In Germany, the daily with the highest circulation is Bild. Outstanding German newspapers include the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of Frankfurt (am Main), Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich, and Die Welt and Berliner Zeitung of Berlin. Italy’s leading papers include La Stampa of Turin, La Repubblica of Rome, and Il Giorno and Corriere della Sera of Milan. Leading newspapers of Spain include El Mundo, El País, and ABC, all published in Madrid; and La Vanguardia, published in Barcelona.
Newspaper circulation is generally smaller in Russia than in most European countries. Russia’s leading dailies are Komsomolskaya Pravda, Moskovsky Komsomolets, and Izvestia.
In Africa and the Middle East,
the governments of most nations maintain tight control over what appears in the press. Israel and South Africa have a free press. But the governments of both countries exercise control over certain types of information, such as national security news. Most Arab countries have laws that allow government officials to censor news before publication. In Egypt, the government controls all the newspapers, including the respected Al Ahram of Cairo. Asharq Al-Awsat, published out of London, is read throughout the Middle East.
In Latin America,
government control of the press is common. Some Latin American nations officially restrict what newspapers may print. Certain others practice indirect forms of censorship. For example, the government may own the nation’s paper supplies. In that case, a newspaper that criticizes government leaders may find it difficult to buy newsprint. Major Latin American newspapers include Clarín, La Prensa, and La Nación of Buenos Aires, Argentina; O Estado de São Paulo and Folha de S.Paulo of São Paulo, Brazil; O Globo of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and El Universal, Excélsior, and Reforma of Mexico City, Mexico.
In Asia,
Japan and China have the most highly developed press systems. Japan’s leading dailies—Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun—circulate nationally. Each publishes a Tokyo edition and several regional editions. One of China’s largest newspapers is Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily) of Beijing, the official paper of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chosun Ilbo of Seoul, South Korea, circulates around the country. Popular newspapers in India include Dainik Bhaskar, Dainik Jagran, the Hindustan Times, Malayala Manorama, and The Times of India. All of these newspapers have a number of regional editions.
In Australia and New Zealand,
newspapers resemble those of the United States and Canada. Major dailies in Australia include The Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald of Sydney, the Herald Sun and The Age of Melbourne, and The Courier-Mail of Brisbane. New Zealand’s leading daily is The New Zealand Herald, published in Auckland.
History
Handwritten newssheets posted in public places probably were the first newspapers. The earliest known daily newssheet was Acta Diurna (Daily Events), which started in Rome in 59 B.C. The world’s first printed newspaper was a Chinese circular called Dibao (Ti-pao). The Chinese began printing Dibao from carved wooden blocks around A.D. 700. The first regularly published newspaper in Europe, Avisa Relation oder Zeitung, started in Germany in 1609. 
Development of U.S. newspapers.
In 1690, Benjamin Harris of Boston founded Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, the first newspaper in the American Colonies. However, the colonial government ordered it stopped after one issue. In 1704, John Campbell established The Boston News-Letter, the colonies’ first regularly published newspaper. By 1765, the colonies had more than 20 newspapers.
Newspapers in the United States developed rapidly in the 1800’s. By 1830, the country had about 1,000 papers. However, they were available only by subscription, and they cost about 6 cents a copy, which was more than working-class people could afford. Then in 1833, Benjamin H. Day started the New York Sun, the first of many successful penny newspapers. In the late 1800’s, papers tried to outdo one another with sensational reports of crimes, disasters, and scandals. The most sensational newspapers included two New York City dailies—William Randolph Hearst’s Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s World. Edward Wyllis Scripps established the first newspaper chain during the late 1800’s. The number of U.S. newspapers peaked in 1909, when the country had about 2,600 dailies and about 14,000 weeklies. For more on the early history of U.S. newspapers, see Journalism (History). 
A changing business environment.
In the 1960’s, newspaper chains in the United States began to buy up small and family-owned papers at a rapid rate. By the end of the 1900’s, the 10 largest chains accounted for more than half of the total daily circulation in the United States.
In the late 1900’s, newspapers in the United States, western Europe, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand struggled to remain profitable. Rising costs of labor and newsprint drove many papers out of business. Many cities lost competing dailies and were left with only one newspaper. Financial problems hit hardest at major metropolitan papers, which faced special distribution problems.
The economic problems of the newspaper business grew worse in the early 2000’s. Newspaper circulation, in decline since the 1950’s, suddenly showed a more marked decrease. Increasing competition from suburban papers and TV newscasts was part of the problem. But by the 1990’s, the internet played a large part in the drop in print newspaper readership.
The first electronic newspaper was published before the introduction of the internet. In 1980, The Columbus Dispatch of Columbus, Ohio, became the first electronic newspaper in the United States. In addition to a print edition, the Dispatch began transmitting some of its content to computers in the homes, businesses, and libraries of a small number of subscribers via the CompuServe network. The growing popularity of the internet in the 1990’s allowed many more people to access news online.
Recent trends.
Most papers today offer online versions. The internet has allowed papers to quickly make corrections and to update or add stories at any point in a day. But newspapers have lost much of the more profitable parts of their business—especially classified ads—to online sites. In addition, advertisers do not pay as much for spots on a website as they would for spots in a print newspaper. These shifts have led to declining profits and closures for thousands of newspapers.
Since the early 2000’s, many newspapers, including large chains, have been purchased by large hedge funds and private equity firms. Hedge funds are high-risk investment companies open to a limited number of wealthy investors. Private equity firms are investment firms that purchase companies, restructure them, and sell them for a profit. In many cases, these investment companies sell valuable real estate owned by a newspaper, such as a newspaper’s downtown headquarters. Many new owners slash staffing to the point where a daily paper may have just two or three reporters. Without sufficient staff and resources, the civic mission of a newspaper can be lost.
Today, the largest newspaper chain operating in the United States is Gannett Co., Inc. The company, which owns more than 200 papers, was purchased by a Japanese investment firm in 2019. Other major chains include Lee Enterprises and Tribune Publishing.
