Text 24 Newspapers

Newspapers are most often published on a daily or weekly basis. A daily newspaper is issued every day, sometimes with the exception of Sundays and some national holidays. Saturday and Sunday editions of daily newspapers tend to be larger, include more specialized sections and advertising inserts, and cost more.

Most nations have newspaper that circulates throughout the whole country: a national newspaper, as contrasted with a local newspaper serving a city or region.

As English has become the international language of business and technology, many newspapers formerly published only in non-English languages have developed English-language editions putting out a scaled-down English version to give their newspaper a global outreach. There is also a small group of newspapers which may be characterised as international newspapers. The International Herald Tribune has always had that focus, while others are repackaged national newspapers or “international editions” of national-scale or large metropolitan newspapers. Often these international editions are scaled down to remove articles that might not interest the wider range of readers.

Newspaper articles fall into several categories:

1. News articles generally follow an "inverted pyramid" structure for conveying information about a current event, incident, or issue of public interest. The first sentence of the article gives the most important facts information (who, what, when, where), and the following paragraphs present the details of the event, incident, or issue (how, why).

2. Feature articles describe people, places, or events of general interest to the public. They also tend to be longer than news articles. As in news articles, most of research involve personal interviews.

3. Columns give the opinion of the writer on a topic of his or her interest and may range from stories about private or public individuals to statements of the writer's position on an issue of public concern. The articles appear in the same place in every issue of the newspaper, usually filling one entire column of text.

4. Op-eds (an abbreviation representing the words "opinion" and "editorial") are written for newspaper publication and present the writer's opinion on an issue of current public interest. These facts usually should be drawn from one’s own expertise or from research using relevant sources, including interviews and current statistics.

5. Letters to the editor, like op-eds, present the writer's opinion on a current topic, and may be based on personal expertise or on research. Letters to the editor are much briefer, sometimes only 1-2 sentences. 

There is no doubt that newspapers have, in the modern world, played an important role in the exercise of freedom of expression. Whistle-blowers, and those who “leak” stories of corruption in political circles often choose to inform newspapers before other mediums of communication, relying on the perceived willingness of newspaper editors to expose the secrets and lies of those who would rather cover them. Governments that limit press freedom are accused of gagging the press. This may take the form a voluntary code of practice overseen by a body referred to informally as a watchdog. If it is not enough for the government it may impose legally enforceable control. The authorities are then described as cracking down or clamping down on the press. Government also may be accused of press censorship and of limiting press freedom. There is a Press Complaints Commission (PCC) which was set up to ensure that editors observe the code of conduct drawn up after Fleet Street narrowly repelled legislation to curb the press over intrusion into private lives.

Questions:

1. What does the term “national newspapers” mean?

2. What does the term “local newspapers” mean?

3. What does the term “international newspapers” mean?

4. How many categories do newspaper articles fall into?

5. What is an "inverted pyramid" structure?

6. What is the difference between feature articles and news articles?

7. What information do newspaper columns give?

8. What should be presented in op-eds?

9. What does the term “gagging the press” imply?

10. What was the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) set up to ensure?