24 January 2009
Types of Newspapers
We’ve cited statistics about dailies and weeklies, but these categories actually include many different types of papers. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
National Daily Newspaper We typically think of the newspaper as a local medium, our town’s paper. But three national daily newspapers enjoy large circulations and significant social and political impact. The oldest and most respected is the Wall Street Journal, founded in 1889 by Charles Dow and Edward Jones. Today, as then, its focus is on the world of business, although its definition of business is broad. With a circulation of 1.9 million, the Journal is the biggest daily in the United States, and an average household income of its readers of $150,000 makes it a favourite for upscale advertisers.
Large Metropolitan Dailies To be a daily, a paper must be published at least five times a week. The circulation of big-city dailies has dropped over the past 30 years, with the heavy losses of the evening papers offsetting increases for the morning papers. Dailies continue to lose circulation at a rate of about 1% per year (Project, 2004).
Almost all papers publish zoned editions – suburban or regional versions of the paper – to attract readers and to combat competition for advertising dollars form the suburban papers. Many big city-dailies have gone as far as to drop the city of their publication from their name. Where is The Tribune published? Oakland, California, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Warren., Ohio, and Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, each produces a paper called The Tribune, but these papers have dropped the city name from their mastheads.
Suburban and Small Town Dailies As the United States has become a nation of transient suburb dwellers, so too has the newspaper been suburbanized. Since 1985 the number of suburban dailies has increased by 50%, and one, Long Island’s Newsday, is the ninth largest paper in the country, with a circulation of nearly 578,800.
Small-town dailies operate much like their suburban cousins if there is a nearby large metropolitan paper; for example, the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune publishes in the shadow of Boston’s two big dailies. Its focus is the Merrimack River Valley in Massachusetts, 25 miles northwest of Boston. If the small town paper has no big city competition, it can serve as the heart of its community.
Weeklies and Semiweeklies Many weeklies and semiweeklies have prospered because advertisers have followed them to the suburbs. Community reporting makes them valuable to those people who identify more with their immediate environment than they do with the neighbouring big city. Suburban advertisers like the narrowly focused readership and more manageable advertising rates.
We’ve cited statistics about dailies and weeklies, but these categories actually include many different types of papers. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
National Daily Newspaper We typically think of the newspaper as a local medium, our town’s paper. But three national daily newspapers enjoy large circulations and significant social and political impact. The oldest and most respected is the Wall Street Journal, founded in 1889 by Charles Dow and Edward Jones. Today, as then, its focus is on the world of business, although its definition of business is broad. With a circulation of 1.9 million, the Journal is the biggest daily in the United States, and an average household income of its readers of $150,000 makes it a favourite for upscale advertisers.
Large Metropolitan Dailies To be a daily, a paper must be published at least five times a week. The circulation of big-city dailies has dropped over the past 30 years, with the heavy losses of the evening papers offsetting increases for the morning papers. Dailies continue to lose circulation at a rate of about 1% per year (Project, 2004).
Almost all papers publish zoned editions – suburban or regional versions of the paper – to attract readers and to combat competition for advertising dollars form the suburban papers. Many big city-dailies have gone as far as to drop the city of their publication from their name. Where is The Tribune published? Oakland, California, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Warren., Ohio, and Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, each produces a paper called The Tribune, but these papers have dropped the city name from their mastheads.
Suburban and Small Town Dailies As the United States has become a nation of transient suburb dwellers, so too has the newspaper been suburbanized. Since 1985 the number of suburban dailies has increased by 50%, and one, Long Island’s Newsday, is the ninth largest paper in the country, with a circulation of nearly 578,800.
Small-town dailies operate much like their suburban cousins if there is a nearby large metropolitan paper; for example, the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune publishes in the shadow of Boston’s two big dailies. Its focus is the Merrimack River Valley in Massachusetts, 25 miles northwest of Boston. If the small town paper has no big city competition, it can serve as the heart of its community.
Weeklies and Semiweeklies Many weeklies and semiweeklies have prospered because advertisers have followed them to the suburbs. Community reporting makes them valuable to those people who identify more with their immediate environment than they do with the neighbouring big city. Suburban advertisers like the narrowly focused readership and more manageable advertising rates.
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