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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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