What kind of newspapers do you know in britain

Newspapers in Britain

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.

Газеты в Британии

Если вы попадете в автобус или поезд в Британии, особенно во время утреннего или вечернего часа пик, вы увидите много людей, читающих газеты. Пресса сообщает нам о различных политических событиях, пользе и уровнях образования.

Газеты обычно делятся на «качественные», которые содержат серьезные, содержательные статьи, и «популярные», размер которых меньше. Они менее серьезны и содержат больше интересных историй для людей, чем новостей.

В Великобритании больше, чем в других развитых странах, продается дневных, национальных и региональных газет.

Существует около 135 дневных и воскресных газет, 2000 еженедельников и около 100 газет, издаваемых членами этнических групп.

Газеты почти всегда независимы в финансовом плане от политических партий.

Однако во время общей выборной кампании многие газеты предлагают своим читателям проголосовать за определенную политическую партию.

Владение национальными, лондонскими и региональными дневными газетами сосредоточено в руках больших издательских групп прессы.

Вопросы:
1. What kind of papers do you know?
2. What does press tell us?
3. What can be read in «quality» newspaper?
4. Who is the owner of newspapers in Britain?
5. «Popular» papers are usually smaller that «quality ones, aren’t they?

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British Newspapers

British Newspapers

Read and speak about press in Britain

Probably in no other country there are such great differences between the various national daily newspapers – in the type of news they report and the way they report it. On the one hand, there are British newspapers that are called the quality newspapers: The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph. These concern themselves as far as possible, with factual reports of major national and international events, with the world of politics and business and with the arts and sport.

In some countries newspapers are owned by government or by political parties. This is not the case in Britain. Newspapers here are mostly owned by individuals or by publishing companies, and the editors of the papers are usually allowed considerate freedom of expression. This is not to say that newspapers are without political bias. Papers like The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Express, The Sun, for example, usually reflect Conservative opinions in their comment and reporting, while The Daily Mirror, The Guardian have a more left-wing bias.

In addition to the 12 national daily newspapers there are 9 national papers which are published on Sundays. Most of the “Sundays” contain more reading matter than daily papers, and several of them also include “colour supplements” – separate colour magazines which contain photographically-illustrated feature articles. Reading a Sunday paper, like having a big Sunday lunch, is an important tradition in many British households. Besides, nearly every area in Britain has one or more local newspapers.

The British are one of the biggest newspaper-reading nations in the world.

Black and White and Read All Over: A Guide to British Newspapers

It’s all change in the world of British newspapers.

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After 30 years, the Independent will be online-only from the end of March. At the same time, a brand new newspaper – the New Day – launched on 29th February.
If you’re trying to understand Britain, understanding the newspapers published and read here can be vital. Whether someone is a Guardian reader or prefers the Daily Mail can tell you a lot about them, and not just their politics. The readers of the Daily Mail and the Telegraph probably vote for the same party and support the same policies, but to say that someone is a reader of the Mail conjures up quite a different image from a Telegraph reader.

What does your choice of newspaper say about you?

It’s also important if you are trying to research anything about Britain. An article from the Daily Star should be taken rather less seriously than one from the Financial Times – so knowing the differences between the newspapers can be vital if you’re checking sources. Here are the most important newspapers to be aware of, with their circulation, political leaning, nickname, format and everything else you need to know.

The Broadsheets

Broadsheet newspapers are broadly defined as those who write in depth for an audience interested in serious news writing rather than celebrity gossip or sensationalism. Traditionally, they were published in on a large “broad sheet” but, as you will see from this list, only a minority of British broadsheets are now published in this format.

The Guardian

Launched 1821
Circulation 165,000
Political leaning Left-wing (endorsed Labour in 2015; Liberal Democrats in 2010)
Nickname The Grauniad (for its history of misspellings, now much improved)
Format ‘Berliner’ – a compact broadsheet format not used by other papers

Just make sure the coffee beans are fair trade…

What should you know about it? The Guardian is the newspaper most associated with liberal middle-class Britain: the world of quinoa, sustainability and concerns about gentrification. It’s best enjoyed with a flat white over brunch. Mockery aside, their investigative journalism is some of the best in the business, and the newspaper won with Pulitzer Prize for public-service reporting in 2014. Their popular style guide is written with a sense of humour.

Can you rely on it? The Guardian is one of Britain’s more trustworthy newspapers, and usually wears its political biases on its sleeve, so you can see them coming.

The Telegraph

Launched 1855
Circulation 470,000
Political leaning Right-wing (endorsed the Conservatives consistently)
Nickname The Torygraph
Format Broadsheet

The Telegraph prides itself on its cricket coverage, and is understood to represent “middle-England”.

What should you know about it? Yin to the Guardian’s yang, the Telegraph is a right-wing paper that publishes the regular column of outgoing Mayor of London and prime ministerial hopeful, Boris Johnson. While the Guardianistas are enjoying their fairtrade guacamole, Telegraph readers are filling the letters page with worries about the rising cost of private school fees.
Can you rely on it? The Telegraph has been accused of playing too much to the desires of its advertisers (including not printing important stories about criticisms of their business practices), but its reporting is otherwise well-regarded.

The Times

Launched 1785
Circulation 405,000
Political leaning Centre-right (endorsed Labour in 2005, the Conservatives in 2010, and the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2015)
Format Tabloid
What should you know about it? The Times is (as its launch date would suggest) one of the oldest newspapers in Britain, and if you want to know what contemporary opinion was of any time in the past 200+ years of British history, The Times is a good place to start.

The Times can serve as a useful historical record.

Can you rely on it? The Times is a paper of record, and therefore has a responsibility to be reliable and somewhat politically objective. However, it was bought by the right-wing Rupert Murdoch’s News International in 1981, and has been accused of drifting rightwards ever since. A quick glance at the history of the paper shows that it has never been politically neutral and, bearing this in mind, it remains one of Britain’s more reliable newspapers.

The Financial Times

Launched 1888
Circulation 200,000
Political leaning Centrist, in favour of free trade (endorsed Labour in 2005, the Conservatives in 2010, and the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition in 2015)
Format Broadsheet

The FT: one for the economists.

What should you know about it? The Financial Times is not much like the other papers on this list. As the name would suggest, business and economic news are its priority, so expect to see world events viewed through the lens of their impact on the stock market. It’s known for the distinctive pink paper on which it is printed. It also has a reputation for people buying it in order to look intelligent.
Can you rely on it? Yes, very much so. It’s worth noting that “financial times sca” autocompletes to “Scarlett Johansson” (not one of their regular columnists, unfortunately) rather than “scandal”, which is a good sign for reputability.

The Independent

Launched 1986
Circulation 55,000
Political leaning Centre-left (called for anyone-but-the-Conservatives in 2010, and the Liberal Democrats to stay in government in 2015, with the Conservatives as a preferable coalition partner to Labour)
Nickname The Indy
Format Tabloid

The advent of online content has altered the shape of the Independent.

What should you know about it? Mostly that it isn’t going to be around much longer. Yes, its content will still be available online, but the print newspaper has always had a more serious tone than its Buzzfeed-esque online content. Its aim on launching was to be centrist with opinion pieces from columnists with a range of political views (hence ‘independent’), but historically this has broadly coalesced on the centre-left. Until 2011, the Indy’s front page carried a banner declaring it “free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence”, though this has been dropped since its acquisition by Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev.
Can you rely on it? Not if you want a paper you can still buy next month. The Independent’s news coverage has been criticised for lacking substance – it’s been called a “viewspaper” rather than a newspaper, promoting opinion over content – but what content exists is generally solid.

The i

Launched 2010
Circulation 270,000
Political leaning Centre-left (as the Independent, but more student-orientated)
Format Tabloid

The i consciously addresses a degree-educated audience.

What should you know about it? It’s the Independent’s cheaper, shorter sister paper, designed for students and others without the time to read a full-size paper. It’s been a huge success, and its profits helped keep the struggling Independent in print for longer than it might otherwise have endured. It’s right on the border between broadsheet and tabloid, and is probably thrown into the broadsheet bracket mostly because it’s clearly written for a degree-educated audience.
Can you rely on it? Perhaps. While it had the reporting heft of the Independent backing it up, it was as reliable as its sister paper. But with the demise of the Independent in print, it’ll be worth keeping an eye on the quality of the i.

Tabloid newspapers

Thankfully, all tabloid newspapers are published in tabloid format. These are cheaper newspapers and quicker to read, with the balance of news versus other content (gossip, weather, sport and games such as crosswords and sudoku) tipped much more towards the latter in comparison with broadsheets. From here on, the question of ‘can you rely on it?’ disappears, because the answer is a consistent no – while many of Britain’s tabloids do contain some good journalism, they are strongly geared towards sensationalism, not a straightforward presentation of the facts.

The Daily Mail

Launched 1896
Circulation 1,590,000
Political leaning Right-wing (endorsed the Conservatives in 2010 and 2015, calling for anyone-but-Labour in 2015)
Nickname The Daily Fail
Format Tabloid

The Daily Mail is known for its pet topics.

The Express

Launched 1900
Circulation 410,000
Political leaning Right-wing (endorsed the Conservatives in 2010 and UKIP in 2015)
Format Tabloid

Over 60% of Express readers would like to see Britain exit the E.U.

What should you know about it? While the Daily Mail has cancer and immigration covered, the Express has its own pet topics: namely Diana, Princess of Wales (yes, even two decades on from her death), the disappearance of the toddler Madeleine McCann (which was in 2007, so represents slightly more up-to-date reporting) and the weather (admittedly a perennial topic in the UK). At the moment, it’s notable as the most Eurosceptic newspaper in Britain, with 66% of its readers backing Brexit (the opposite end of the scale to the Guardian, with 75% of its readers backing Remain).

The Mirror

Launched 1903
Circulation 810,000
Political leaning Left-wing (endorsed Labour in 2010 and 2015, calling for anyone-but-the-Conservatives in 2015)
Format Tabloid
What should you know about it? It’s currently Britain’s most popular left-wing tabloid by quite some margin. It was initially launched as a newspaper by women, for women, but this was not a commercial success, so it moved to a broader focus not long after its launch. Though the Mirror is no more reliable than its other tabloid rivals (as a long list of libel suits and front-page apologies show), it tends to escape the harshness of criticism targeted at the Daily Mail and the Express, possibly because of its relatively lonely political position among the tabloid market.

The New Day

Launched 2016
Circulation It will probably end up around 200,000
Political leaning So far, apolitical, but from the publishers of the Mirror
Format Tabloid
What should you know about it? There isn’t yet much to know, except that it’s an interesting choice on the part of Trinity Mirror to launch a brand-new newspaper at a time when most print newspapers are seeing their circulations in significant decline – though the buoyancy of the i and similarly positioned freesheets such as the Metro are presumably what prompted the launch. It’s worth watching what happens to the New Day (for instance, whether it retains its neutral tone or finds a niche on the political spectrum) as an indicator of the general health of print journalism in Britain today.

The Sun

Launched 1964
Circulation 1,775,000
Political leaning Populist (endorsed every election winner since 1979)
Format Tabloid

The Sun is relatively new, having been founded in 1964.

What should you know about it? Britain’s most-read newspaper, owned by the same group as the Times, the Sun is the paper to keep an eye on if you want to know the mainstream of British public opinion. The paper claims that its record of endorsing election winners is because of its influence (take its famous 1992 headline on the surprise election of John Major – “It’s the Sun Wot Won It”) but it’s perhaps more likely down to a good instinct for the mood of the country on the part of its editors.

In 1987, the sitcom Yes, Prime Minister had its main character – the Prime Minister, Jim Hackett – give the following speech:
“Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country, the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country, the Times is read by people who actually do run the country, the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country, the Financial Times is read by people who own the country, the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.”
There have been a few small changes since then – the Morning Star, once the newspaper of the British Communist Party, now has a readership of just 10,000 and so doesn’t get included in lists of major newspapers any more (even though it counts the current Leader of the Opposition among its regular contributors), and no Mirror readers are under the impression they run the country any more either – but otherwise it’s remarkably on the money, even down to the fact that the Daily Mail is one of the few newspapers with a majority female readership. Despite falling circulations, closures and controversies, Britain’s newspapers continue to provide a remarkable insight into the way the country thinks, and seem likely to continue to do so.

Useful Notes / British Newspapers

Edit Locked

The United Kingdom has a good number of nationally distributed newspapers, each of which targets a specific political or social group (rather than a specific region like in the US note This difference might not mean much, but it allowed British papers to weather the trend for more specialised information in the late 1990s and 2000s far better than their American counterparts. until the economic crisis and Facebook hit the press by 2008 ). The British press is collectively known as «Fleet Street», although this is an artifact of an era when many newspapers were at that particular location in London; most have since gone elsewhere.

They are typically classified by format:

As with nearly everything in Britain, there’s a class distinction in who reads which papers, with the higher classes reading the more respected publications.

Note that in spite of dealing with a rather different political system from the United States, the comment sections of all these newspapers’ websites are populated by pretty much the same sort of Online Personas as American comment sections. So if you were expecting the British stereotype of restraint and civility, prepare to be disappointed.

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is best known for its trenchant support of the Conservative Party, giving it the derisive nickname «The Daily Torygraph». However, it’s still known as one of Britain’s two newspapers of record by reputation, and its reporting is considered to be quite good regardless of its strong political bent.

It has historically been a heavy journalistic hitter; in 1908, it published an interview in which Kaiser Wilhelm ran his mouth off a bit, which had a hand in bringing down the Chancellor of the German Empire, and it was also the first paper to report from Poland on the outbreak of World War II. These days, though, it seems to be defined by its conservative stance and its unintentionally hilarious rivalry with the left-leaning Guardian. Its other nickname, the «Daily Hurleygraph», derives from its odd fascination with Elizabeth Hurley (and «fruity girls» in general). Not that they don’t make scoops anymore; the paper broke the 2009 MP expenses scandal and a 2016 investigation on tactics used by England footy manager Sam Allardyce, who was then dismissed.

Its strangest episode might be an accidental security breach in 1944, when the solutions to its crossword puzzle started featuring military codewords, including for the Normandy landings. It turned out that the crossword editor, who was also headmaster of a boys’ school, had been picking up the words from his students, who had in turn been picking them up from the military base next door.

The Times and the Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a sister paper, and although they are essentially grouped together and share common ownership, they were founded independently, only coming under common ownership in 1966. In the late 1950s, the Sunday Times became the first British newspaper to have more than one section, and in 1962 it became the first Sunday paper to introduce a colour magazine. It’s a thick broadsheet with several supplements, and has remained so even after the daily edition switched in 2004 to tabloid format (or «compact», as they prefer to call it). It’s most famous for its annual «Sunday Times Rich List», a league table of the UK’s richest people.

Since 1981, Times and the Sunday Times have been owned by Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, famous for imposing a conservative editorial line on news outlets he owns, some of which you’ll see elsewhere on this page. However, the Times‘ age and reputation mean that it is editorially independent and doesn’t have to toe the Murdoch line, although its natural bent is neutral-to-conservative.

Its most famous reporting is simultaneously one of its biggest scoops and its biggest goofs; it exposed Israel’s Open Secret of a nuclear program. Unfortuantely, the Times failed to take good care of their whistle-blower, Israeli scientist Mordechai Vanunu; Mossad caught him in a Honey Trap, and he was imprisoned in Israel for 18 years. It’s the subject of intense debate how much of this was Vanunu’s fault and how much was the Times‘, but the paper considers it an Old Shame and has become particularly critical of Israel since then (which just gets it into more trouble).

The Guardian and The Observer

The Guardian is the UK’s biggest left-leaning paper. It’s often called the «Grauniad», a result of its former reputation for frequent typos, and its readers are often called «Guardianistas» (particularly as a derogatory comment on their political leanings, analogous to the American «New York Times liberal»). It started life as the Manchester Guardian in 1821, only moving to London in 1964, five years after taking «Manchester» out of the title; it’s now got a reputation of being particularly London-centric. It feels very centrist sometimes in spite of its left-leaning reputation; it doesn’t support Labour or the Whigs (currently the Liberal Democrats) so much as it opposes the Tories, and it has been critical of far-left governments in Latin America and Eastern Europe, basically following the British government stance there. This leads to the accusation that they actually just tend to adopt any position that will best enable them to get away with a tone of slightly condescending self-righteousness. The paper is also known for its anti-monarchist stance; its web portal even offers a «republican edition» when the Royals are the topic of the day.

Politics aside, the paper is unique in that its parent company, the Guardian Media Group, is owned by a trust which exists to ensure its editorial independence, and its actual reporting, op-eds is aside, is considered to be very good. That said, it seems to be willing to pick fights with practically every other major newspaper, from the traditionally conservative Daily Telegraph to more hardcore left-wing Daily Mirror. It’s also infamous for supporting candidates who lose in embarrassing fashion, in the UK and outside it; it once got into hot water for suggesting that its readers ring up random Americans to tell them not to vote for George W. Bush in 2004. Elsewhere in the paper, it has a very highly regarded crossword, which enthusiasts say might be even better than that of the Times.

It has the lowest circulation of the «big three» newspapers, behind the Times and the Telegraph, which is likely because it’s the only one of the three whose website is not behind a paywall. The paper calls this a commitment to the «free democracy of ideas», while cynics call it giving away all your content for free. That said, its online presence is formidable, third in traffic among British news sites behind only the Daily Mail and the internationally-venerated BBC News.

Its proudest journalistic moment is its hand in the collapse of the News of the World (a tabloid described below); they had been plugging away at the scandal for years, and it was they who made the breakthrough by discovering that the News of the World had hacked a murdered teenager’s phone to give her family hope that she might still be alive. If they hadn’t been investigating so tirelessly, chances are what the News of the World had been doing would never have come to light. Even the Telegraph gave them props.

The Observer has been the Guardian‘s Sunday-only sister paper since 1993; it’s the oldest Sunday newspaper in the world, being first published in 1791, and it gives particular focus to arts and culture. Between it, Guardian Weekend, The Observer Magazine, and the Observer Food Monthly, they give the impression of being Obsessed with Food, albeit in a very London-centric, Islington-dinner-party sort of way (including blatant Product Placement for fairly expensive British supermarkets).

Both The Guardian and The Observer were the only UK newspapers printed in the Berliner format, having switched from broadsheet in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Both switched to tabloid in January 2018.

The Independent and the i

Founded in 1986, the Independent is considerably younger than the other broadsheets and was set up to be genuinely independent compared to the other papers. It didn’t exactly work out; it stopped print publication entirely in March 2016, although it’s still available online.

In earlier years, Private Eye called it «The Indyscribablyboring», reflecting how much it tried to be balanced on partisan issues. But since then, it’s become outspoken too; it just took a third option and went more or less with the Lib Dems. It’s also particularly outspoken on environmental issues, obsessing over them in much the same way the right-wing tabloids cover immigration. Since the switch to an online edition, it has faced accusations of peddling clickbait. It was the first of the «quality» papers to abandon the broadsheet format, becoming a tabloid in 2003.

The real changes began in 2010, when the paper was bought for a single pound by Russian oligarch (and former KGB employee) Alexander Lebedev. It then introduced a «lite» middle-market spin-off called the i, which turned out to be the company’s only publication to survive 2016 in print; it was sold to Johnston Press.

Among its contributing writers is Nigel Farage, former head of UKIP, a right-wing party based largely on hardline immigration policy and leaving the European Union altogether. The editors defended him against criticism largely by citing its independent stance. However, the paper has since picked up a number of UKIP sympathisers, including among the editorial ranks.

In 2019, the i was bought out by the Daily Mail group. Despite the editor’s assurances that it wouldn’t abandon its previous editorial line in favour of its new owners’ preferences, the Daily Mail‘s reputation is so dire that no one believed him, and readers started abandoning the paper. Many readers claimed its editorial line did change (or was always in line with the Mail‘s), because the paper’s refusal to support the Labour Party (perhaps in an effort to prove its centrism) amounted to support for the right wing in an increasingly polarised British political scene.

The Financial Times

The Catholic Herald

The Catholic Herald is a London-based weekly broadsheet serving both the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Although its circulation is fairly small and generally limited to Catholic parishes, it was a reasonably influential paper, becoming a bastion of social conservatism in the British press. Now, practically no one’s actually heard of it.

Its editorial line is always that of the Catholic Church. Although there is no direct or official oversight from the Vatican, the paper never contradicts official Catholic doctrine. Outside of that, its editorial stance is best described as «to the right of the Daily Mail«. As such, faced with an increasingly secular and socially liberal Britain, it’s a relentlessly pessimistic paper.

Politically, it’s all over the place; it likes the Conservatives’ general right-wing stance, but it also supports Labour’s social programs (in keeping with Catholic social teaching). When Conservative PM David Cameron came out in support of gay marriage, its political stance basically became «fuck you all». It publishes a lot of Christian apologism (although relatively little of it is anti-atheist Hitler Ate Sugar-type screeds), and it also has little patience for «cafeteria Catholics». However, it has a much higher standard of reporting than the mid-market tabloids, and it has a series of excellent and informative non-news articles on all sorts of Catholic subjects, from ecumenism to Vatican II to the Saints.

It has a long-running rivalry with the more liberal-leaning Catholic magazine The Tablet, in much the same vein as the Telegraph—Guardian rivalry — in fact, many Catholic Telegraph writers are Traditionalists who like the Catholic Herald, whereas many Catholic Guardian writers are pro-Tablet, which should tell you all you need to know. Catholic Herald readers refer to the Tablet as «the Bitter Pill».

The Yorkshire Post

Based in Leeds, the Yorkshire Post, despite its name and largely regional circulation, considers itself a national newspaper. As such, it tends to report on national and international news stories rather than following the Local Angle, although it’s a very precarious balance. It’s one of the country’s oldest newspapers, being founded in the 1750s as the Leeds Intelligencer. Its biggest scoop was in the 1930s, when it became the first British paper to break the story of the abdication crisis surrounding King Edward VIII.

The Daily Mail

Says the enemy’s among us, taking our women and taking our jobs. The Daily Mail, founded in 1896, is ultra-right-wing, reactionary, eurosceptic, xenophobic, isolationist, often hysterical, and notoriously obsessed with immigration, house prices, same-sex marriage, and claimants of state benefits.

These days, it presents itself as the voice of the «silent (moral) majority» or of «the ordinary man on the street», who funnily enough happens to hold the exact same opinions as the Mail. Although it almost always supports the Conservatives, its tone often verges further right into UKIP and BNP territory. It also has an Irish edition that is similarly populist in its editorial policy, but doesn’t necessarily have to align with the British version, leading to some humorous contradictions.

It has a big website, with more views than even the Guardian‘s. It likes to dump its most sensationalist articles there, where they would be read by foreigners who take them seriously because it’s a British paper (something on which Cracked has called them out). It’s been known even to lift content from social media websites like Reddit and YouTube as filler. The website’s «FeMail» section is ostensibly devoted to women’s issues, but it’s essentially a vehicle for the Mail to publish smut — it’s full of codewords that sexualise women while still looking nominally progressive, and it even posts naughty pictures, ostensibly for people to be outraged at. Despite this, the Mail is the only paper in the UK with more female than male readers.

Because of said website, the Mail also has a good-sized American readership, particularly because of its copious gossip and «in other news» stories (and its manner of bullet-pointing every paragraph of a story to earn Google SEO points). Its American arm was even able to launch a daily syndicated TV show in 2017, hosted by former Bachelor Jesse Palmer — which, due to the UK’s impartiality and celebrity privacy laws, cannot legally be shown in its home market.

It has a number of pet obsessions. Cancer might be its biggest; everything has been touted on its front page either to cause cancer or to cure it (and some do both on different days). This led to the nickname «The Daily Hypochondriac» and comedian Russell Howard giving us the the «Daily Mail Cancer Song» (set to the usual tune). It’s also got an unhealthy obsession with homosexuality, largely the work of Heteronormative Crusader columnist Richard Littlejohn, who has it bad enough for the Guardian to publish an annual «Littlejohn Audit» keeping track of how many times he mentions gays.

Wikipedia made a splash by making the Mail its first deprecated source, meaning it cannot be used for citations unless the article is about the paper itself, and there’s an auto-sweeper that will give you a warning if you try to link to it. There are barely 30 such sources, and although the Sun and News of the World are also on that list, so are infamous «fake news» websites like Infowars, which should tell you the extent of the Mail‘s poor reputation. Wikipedia’s decision on the Mail became a landmark for the site, and it also spurred other venues to do similar things (such as Virgin Trains briefly pulling it from its shops). The Mail responded by posting an article smearing a Wikipedia admin, to barely any effect.

So with the paper’s dire reputation, how is it still winning journalistic awards? What is it doing right? It does have interesting historical articles; for this, we can thank respected historian and former war correspondent Sir Max Hastings. It has very good photography, resulting in nice nature and landscape photographs and eye-catching news photography (although it mostly puts this skill to paparazzi photos). Its «coffee break» section isn’t bad. Its sports section is decent enough. And. it sells well? It sells well.

Before 1971, when it absorbed the tabloid Daily Sketch (founded 1909), it was a right-wing broadsheet, and was taken more seriously. Most of the populist elements of today’s Daily Mail come from the Sketch.

The Mail on Sunday

The Mail on Sunday is the Sunday sister paper to the Daily Mail, founded in 1982. While still staunchly conservative, it’s also far less alarmist than the Mail, far more credible, and far less reactionary (in 1983 even endorsing the Social Democrats, a Labour Party splinter group that’s a predecessor to the modern Liberal Democrats or to later iterations of Labour under Blair and Starmer). This makes it a paper of choice for conservatives who don’t like hysteria. However, its journalists and columnists include staunchly Anglican conservative (and enemy of television) Peter Hitchens, brother of the famous atheist/antitheist Christopher Hitchens, who regularly bashes the Conservative Party for not being right-wing enough.

The Daily Express

It started as a pioneer of sorts, being the first British newspaper to have a crossword, and it was also the first to report on gossip and sports to any significant degree. It was also notable for having Leon Trotsky write dispatches during his exile from the Soviet Union. But it was also not exactly progressive and had a rather «schizophrenic» attitude to Jews during the 1930s (Neo-Nazis still spout out an Express headline of the era, » JUDEA DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY «, as a bizarre «proof» that they weren’t victims at all note The headline was its opinion on Jewish organisations’ call for a boycott of German goods in response to Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor ). And since then, it’s drifted so far to the right that it’s best described as «the Daily Mail off its medication», especially for its demonisation of immigrants to the point of straight-up racism. Its scare-mongering articles about immigration were so racist that they prompted a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, the newspapers’ self-regulatory body — from its own journalists.

After Princess Diana and immigrants, the Express has a number of other pet obsessions, like extreme weather conditions, house prices going up or down, anything to do with old people (pensions, medical conditions, etc.), and a mix between Missing White Woman Syndrome and Worst News Judgment Ever in the case of the 2007 disappearance of the three-year-old Madeleine McCann in Portugal. These topics crop up on the front page so often you can play bingo with them.

Its most tasteless moment was an article attacking the now-adult survivors of the Dunblane massacre, Britain’s deadliest school shooting, because they put pictures of themselves drinking on their Facebook pages, which the journalist in question saw only by pretending to be a teenager and befriending them on the site.

It’s also rather provincial in its coverage, reporting on severe British weather phenomena at the expense of other more newsworthy stories, and hating the European Union with a passion (Diana died over there!), even by the standards of the generally quite Euroskeptic right-wing press. In the 2015 General Election, the Express was the only paper to endorse the pro-independence UKIP outright.

It’s also the longtime home of Rupert Bear, with most fans agreeing the strip is better than the rest of the newspaper.

The Sunday Express (founded in 1918) is rather more nuanced in tone, being similar to the Daily Mail.

The Evening Standard

It has something of a reputation for provincialism, particularly regarding its coverage of the The London Underground; big news stories will be pushed off the front page in favor of the latest on the ongoing Tube strike (a fictional example: «THREATEN TUBE STRIKE — Aliens Attack Earth»). It’s also obsessed with the evils of squatting.

Politically, it’s fairly right-wing; it played a key role in the election of Boris Johnson as mayor of London (hence its nickname «the Evening Boris»). This is largely because the paper particularly hated then-incumbent Ken Livingstone; he once likened one of their reporters (who was Jewish) to a concentration camp guard, and the whole thing exploded into a big scandal. It also supported Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith in the 2016 mayoral election, to the point of reproducing his press releases more or less verbatim; here, they were less successful, as Goldsmith lost to Labour’s Sadiq Khan.

It’s owned by Evgeny Lebedev, who purchased a majority of (Daily Mail parent) Associated Newspapers’ stake for a single pound; this only served to make it even more right-wing than before. It also gives Lebedev’s TV station London Live priority in its TV listings (ahead of even The BBC), in spite of it having, as Private Eye put it, slightly less viewers than the Yeti.

Its most recent editor is former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, an appointment that caused much surprise, not least because Osborne was still an MP at the time of his appointment. Although a snap general election gave Osborne the opportunity to stand down, his editorship still raises eyebrows because of its needling of Theresa May (who sacked Osborne as Chancellor upon becoming PM) and, in an ironic twist, her successor Boris Johnson.

Trinity Mirror’s answer to the Mail, the Express, and the i, the New Day was launched at a time when the newspaper industry was in dire straits and was aimed at people who don’t usually buy newspapers (seriously). Unlike your usual metropolitan paper, it had no editorial page, the information was mostly news briefs, and the sports section was located in the middle pages rather than at the back cover, which was occupied by a weather map. Experts thought it wouldn’t last a year. It didn’t last three months.

Today (1986-95)

Just for completeness: Today was a newspaper which ran for less than a decade (1986-95). It started off as somewhat left-wing — it printed the original run of Sue Townsend’s Secret Diary of Margaret Hilda Roberts Age 13¾ and had future New Labour spin-doctor Alistair Campbell as political editor. After about a year of that, it was sold to Murdoch and got «Rommel» Montgomery as editor (famous for his work with the Mirror), and it became extremely Thatcherite indeed, to the point it was nicknamed Toady. What it’s mostly remembered for, though, is being the UK’s first full-colour newspaper, and usually looking terrible in the process. A few TV history nerds might also recall it as the paper that employed Mattie Storin in the original House of Cards.

First News

First News is a newspaper for young people of school age. It manages to take a mature and unbiased look at world issues while still being kid-friendly. It has everything a newspaper should have, but adapted for children.

The Sun

The Sun is one of the most infamous papers in Britain. There is a lot to say about it, most of it not very kind. But here’s a description of the average Sun reader by its own former editor, the notorious Kelvin MacKenzie:

The list of people who loathe the Sun basically encompasses everybody not in that description. And in spite of that, the Sun is the best-selling paper in the British isles and the tenth most popular worldwide.

It’s got a very right-wing bent, but it ironically started as the Daily Herald (originally, for one month, The World), a genuinely pro-Labour broadsheet aimed at «political radicals» and owned by trade unions. After a decline during the post-war period, it was bought by International Publishing Corporation (owners of the left-wing Daily Mirror) and managed to maintain its profile. But then came a market study suggesting an intense demographic shift, and in 1964, it transformed into the Sun, aiming for not just political but also «social radicals» in the middle class. This didn’t exactly work out, and in 1969 it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch, who turned it into the modern-day tabloid seen today and still maintains a firm grip on it.

It was famous for many years for the Page Three Stunna, a collection of topless women on the third page; although it’s not the only tabloid to have done so, it’s easily the most famous. It’s thus essentially using topless women to sell propaganda. It quietly stopped in 2015, largely because the competition for ogling women was overwhelming.

It was also the home of cartoon strips including George And Lynne, which also regularly featured topless women in its cartoons. This was dropped in 2010 and now the paper does not run any comic strips. It remains the home of “Dear Deidre”, the UK’s best known Agony Aunt.

Its staunch conservatism is expressed in a highly populist manner. It presents itself as standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the common man (albeit often unconvincingly). It openly endorsed Brexit despite being boycotted by readers and advertisers (although its impact on the paper is debatable). But that doesn’t mean it’s totally aligned with the Conservative Party; in fact, it backed Labour in 1997, 2001, and 2005 (even as it spent much of this period attacking the party in its editorials), giving it the impression of being afraid of backing a loser. (Some believed that Murdoch was also trying to play nice at the time to get British media ownership regulations relaxed). This may also be why the Sun claimed credit for the Tories’ surprise victory in the 1992 general election (with the headline » IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT «). Notably, the Tories didn’t exactly deny it.

But one cannot talk about the Sun without discussing its single most infamous piece of reporting, on the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, a stampede at a football match that killed 97 Liverpool FC supporters. All official reports suggest that it was caused by horrendous crowd control and poor policing, including an assumption that victims trying to escape the crush toward the field were hooligans trying to rush the pitch. The Sun, on the other hand (with the infamous headline » THE TRUTH «) straight up put the blame on the Liverpool fans, claiming with no evidence or justification that they started the stampede, attacked first responders, and looted the dead and urinated on corpses.\\\

The Hillsborough reporting is a huge part of the Sun‘s character because it shows just how loathsome its editor Kelvin MacKenzie was. The story was his brainchild; other journalists in the Sun could see the response coming, but MacKenzie was such a newsroom tyrant that no one could talk him down. Not even Rupert Murdoch could fully leash him, as MacKenzie retracted his apology for the reporting and blamed Murdoch for pressuring him into making it. Even decades later, when the final report on the disaster was issued in 2016 and finally, definitively exposed the Sun‘s reporting as a great big lie, MacKenzie wouldn’t back down (and forbade any coverage on the inquiry other than a brief wire report). Liverpool FC responded by formally banning all Sun journalists from club facilities forever (Everon did the same shortly thereafter, in response to the 2017 ‘gorilla’ article, also by MacKenzie).

That’s a lot to digest for a by-word for nasty journalism, but all you need to know is condensed quite nicely in this Billy Bragg song, «Never Buy the Sun«.

The Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror is a generally left-wing tabloid, though as a populist paper it can veer to the right on issues like crime. Ironically, it was founded as a conservative stable-mate of the Daily Mail (to the extent of supporting Oswald Mosley); it turned to its current ideology in the late 1930s under the editorship of Guy Bartholomew. It was a genuinely good investigative newspaper which ran many acclaimed campaigns and perspectives; the great John Pilger was one of its leading lights. And then crooked businessman and financier Robert Maxwell got hold of it in 1984, and the old left-wing spirit was emasculated.

After Maxwell’s mysterious death in 1991, the paper passed into the hands of decidedly right-wing editor and publisher David «Rommel» Montgomery, who was already famous for helming the defunct (and slavishly pro-Thatcher) newspaper Today (A bitter joke among old Mirror hands goes, «I thought a leader called Monty was supposed to be on our side»). Post-Montgomery, the paper has made vague efforts towards claiming back its left-wing credentials, including rehiring Pilger to report on the Iraq War and being the only national paper that supported the Labour Party at the tail-end of Gordon Brown’s premiership.

Its most famous former editor, though, is Piers Morgan, who ran the paper between 1995 and 2004, shifting the paper towards classical liberalism. He was sacked for faking pictures of abuse by British soldiers in Iraq. The vicious coverage led to people spitting on soldiers in the street before the pictures were exposed as false; the military has lost all respect for the Mirror, but they generally don’t think of it as worth attacking. note As the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment put it, «This regiment has taken on Louis XIV, Napoleon, the Kaiser, and Hitler. I doubt Piers Morgan will detain us long.» Morgan, meanwhile, became a target of persistent ridicule (Private Eye always calls him some variant of «Piers Moron») and was banished to America to be an anchor on CNN (he has since been booted back to England to work for the Mail). Post-2004, the paper began lurching to the left, but still not to the extent of the «classic» Mirror.

The Mirror has a long and odd history of enmity with Private Eye, in spite of the latter not taking anybody in the media particularly seriously. The Mirror would devote vast resources to the «battle», suing the magazine and its editor Ian Hislop for £225,000 (about half a million 2013 pounds); Hislop famously snarked about giving «a fat cheque to a fat Czech» (Maxwell having been born in Czechoslovakia). The Mirror even called Hislop’s vicar asking for «dirt»; the most they could dig up were invented stories about Hislop’s alleged «chronic piles» and «weird obsession with tangerines».

It was interestingly founded in 1903 as a «paper for women», and it’s trying to rediscover that niche, to the point that generally about half of its content it aimed specifically at women, with the remainder (barring the sports pages) being largely gender-neutral. The exception is Saturday and Monday, which is largely dedicated to football anyway.

It has a very loyal following Oop North, with a separate Northern edition since 1955. It’s pretty much the only national paper you can quietly read in Manchester or Liverpool. After a miners’ strike and a football tragedy, the very idea of selling (let alone reading) a Tory paper can lead to some troubles.

Its Sunday edition descends from the Sunday Pictorial (or the «Pic»), which existed between 1915 and 1964.

The Daily Star

The Daily Star (founded in 1978), like the Daily Express, is a Desmond title. It’s got more tits and less news than the Sun, and it’s essentially a daily gossip magazine. It admittedly makes things up and has been sued for it before. If the Express is «the Mail off its meds», for most of its history the Star was «the Express‘s special little brother off its meds» — it was so racist and homophobic that it’s cozied up to the far-right, Muslim-baiting English Defence League on several occasions. One reporter quit after being instructed to «wrap himself around» a group of women in burqas wearing nothing but his underwear. Interestingly, ever since the Express Group was acquired by Reach plc, the Star took a more left-wing bent, essentially becoming a more populist version of sister red-top, the Daily Mirror.

It’s infamous for its misleading headlines:

The Daily Sport

The Daily Sport is pure Male Gaze. It superficially resembles the Sun, Mirror, and Star, but it’s basically a British equivalent of the U.S. National Enquirer, in that it contains almost nothing that is normally thought of as news. It’s so downtrodden as a paper that Googling its title gets you the Star‘s website instead. And it no longer really exists — after a single brush with bankruptcy, the daily edition of this organ of the press (which organ is best left to the imagination) has ceased publication, leaving only the Sunday Sport and a midweek version remain in circulation.

Its typical fare (squeezed in, with extreme difficulty, around the porn) includes stories of a double-decker bus encased in an Antarctic ice sheet, a World War II bomber found on the Moon, a kebab house with an unconventional ingredient, and a half-horse, half-human baby. When an astronomer called them to say that he had a telescope pointed at the moon which couldn’t pick up a bomber, the headline the next day was «World War II Bomber on Moon Vanishes!»

The News of the World

The News of the World was another Murdoch paper, formerly published weekly on Sunday. Founded in 1843, it was usually thought of as the «Sunday Sun«, and in terms of content they were almost exactly the same. It was otherwise known as «News of the Screws» or «Screws of the World». It was traditionally the newspaper of choice for wrapping fish and chips (before the practice was stopped as a health hazard).

It was forced to shut down in 2011 when the Guardian discovered that it had hacked the voicemails of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and deleted messages from her voicemail, giving her family hope that she might still be alive. The fallout from this led to the resignation of several high-ranking officials in the government and the London Metropolitan Police. It also scuttled Rupert Murdoch’s bid to acquire the parts of the BSkyB network he didn’t already own and led to a long inquiry and discussion over ethics in tabloid journalism.

The People

The People is a clone of the News of the World, and now a Sunday-only sister to the Sunday Mirror. No one reads it — or rather, no one admits to reading it, since there actually is a Sunday Mirror which is basically the same but with better brand recognition and less pornographic connotations. Somehow, though, the People is still going after 130 years. It’s notorious for Bait-and-Switch front pages involving celebrities’ «lady bits», usually purporting to show a photograph of national celebrities’ «downstairs», and an article that winds up having only a tangential relationship to anything.

The Communists

The Communists are a notoriously fractious bunch, and as such they have a number of their own newspapers which may or may not still exist:

Most national newspapers also put out a Scottish edition with a few vague attempts at localisation. This is influenced by the fact that political «left and right» are a bit different in Scotland than in the rest of the UK, particularly England; a centrist in London terms would be seen as rather right-wing in Scotland. This means that while the Sun is solidly Tory in the rest of the UK, its Scottish edition maintains an uncomfortable neutrality, even going as far as backing the SNP rather than the Tories in the 2015 election — local opinion (and its effect on sales) winning out over the influence of Rupert Murdoch.

That said, there are also a few specifically Scottish titles:

Most English papers sell specific Irish editions in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. These range from near-identical to the English versions (the Irish Sun) to substantially different (the Irish Daily Star, which is much less interested in celebrities and cares a lot more about Irish politics). If you want a detailed look at Irish newspapers, most of which are based in the Republic but are available in the North, see Irish Newspapers. However, some papers you’ll find mainly in Northern Ireland:

Freesheets are tabloid-sized newspapers available for free at railway stations and from street vendors — or from the seats of trains, which is where they usually end up. Letters to the Metro have on occasion encouraged people to do this and complained about train staff removing the papers. On the Manchester trams, there are notices encouraging people to leave the Metro on the seat. Conversely, on Manchester area trains and The London Underground there are posters warning that doing so is littering.

But perhaps the most famous magazine is:

Private Eye

Private Eye is a fortnightly satirical magazine edited by Ian Hislop of Have I Got News for You fame. Its investigative journalism is better than that of most of the proper papers, with the twin results of breaking many scandals earlier than anyone else, and being the subject of countless libel suits — Hislop frequently publishes the letters threatening legal action, and he occasionally describes himself as «the most-sued man in British legal history». It’s also responsible for many of the nicknames for the other papers you see here. As a self-appointed watchdog and frequent commenter on the rest of the British press and the tropes they use, it’s no wonder you see them cited on This Very Wiki more than any of the real papers.

It lives in a legal grey area; it uses its journalists’ anonymity and its status as a «not-quite-proper» news magazine to subtly hint at stories it doesn’t have enough information on to print outright without getting sued. It does this partly to spook the subject into doing something stupid or to get more informants. It’s also got an incredible collection of in-jokes, many of them being euphemisms for things they can’t mention outright without the risk of a lawsuit (e.g. «tired and emotional» for «drunk», because «drunk» would imply that you’ve seen an official document with the subject’s blood alcohol content). It’s also got a number of joke pages with meta-euphemisms (such as the number 94), but political insiders claim that the Eye often has as much news in its joke pages as in its news ones, if you’re in the know.

If you know French newspapers, it’s basically a longer equivalent to Le Canard Enchaîné. Americans should think of the joke pages as similar to The Onion and the news pages as a print version of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its progeny (particularly the hard-investigative-journalism-as-done-by-comedians aspects of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee), especially for its reputation for calling out the rest of the media for being stupid.

There you go, then. This is why so many Brits just get their news from topical quiz shows instead.

Tropedia

PM Jim Hacker: «Don’t tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country, The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country, The Times is read by people who actually do run the country, The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country, The Financial Times is read by people who own the country, The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.»

Sir Humphrey: «Prime Minister, what about the people who read the Sun?»

Bernard Wooley: «Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits.»

National newspapers in the UK were traditionally divided by format, between the relatively respectable and intelligent broadsheets and the scurrilous, gossip- and crime-obsessed tabloids. The latter are generally subdivided into the ‘mid-market’ tabloids and, at the lower end, those known colloquially as the ‘red-tops’ after their red-background title logos. Several of the broadsheet newspapers have now adopted tabloid or ‘Berliner’ physical formats, but the divide in reputation between the two types remains.

The UK press is collectively known as «Fleet Street», although most of them have now left that particular London locale in favour of Canary Wharf.

Contents

Broadsheets (and those with «broadsheet style», despite their Berliner or tabloid compact format)

Mid-market tabloids

Currently, it likes to present itself as the voice of the «silent (moral) majority». It provoked a protest march from Emo kids due to some shoddy journalism. Has an Irish edition that is similarly populist in its editorial policy, humorously leading to scare stories and editorial campaigns printed in different markets that contradict one another. Notable for having some pretty controversial columnists on its staff; Richard Littlejohn is usually the most commonly cited example. After its flirtation with the British Union of Fascists (until the events of 1939-45 made this unthinkable even for the Mail), it will now always support the Conservatives, although its tone verges into BNP territory a lot, leading to the occasional condemnation of the latter to (unconvincingly) make itself appear moderate (in 2012 it raised some eyebrows by publishing a column endorsing the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election).

Some journalists, notably the Guardian’s Paul Davies, have pointed out the Daily Mail isn’t right wing as a rule; it’s just slavishly devoted to its huge market, the white 30+ middle class. If this market is resentful towards bankers (most recently), the Tories, etc., then the Mail is not afraid to bash bankers and the Tories. So it all comes down to the bottom line in the end. The Mail is very similar to The Sun when at its worst, but likes to pretend it’s more upmarket. Obsessed with Karen Gillan, Katie Price and Kim Kardashian. Only escapes being considered ‘gutter press’ due to tradition, but is even losing that battle, with its journalists famously trying to distance itself from their editor, Paul Dacre. Saving graces are that it sometimes does some pretty interesting historical articles (thanks to the presence of respected historian and ex-war correspondent Sir Max Hastings on the writing staff), and often has very nice nature and landscape photographs. The crossword isn’t bad either.

Red-top tabloids

The ink comes off on your hands. Has been responsible for some of the most famous (or infamous) headlines of recent times, such as «Gotcha» (the sinking of General Belgrano in 1982 during The Falklands War, although the original story merely thought it had been damaged), «It’s The Sun Wot Won It» (after backing Major’s Conservatives to a surprise 1992 General Election victory), and occasional superlatively convoluted Punny Headlines such as the football-related «Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious». Uses Bold Inflation a LOT. Has recently created a free Polish-language edition, Polski Sun, for the duration of Euro 2008. The last time time they endorsed Labour they did it by blowing red smoke out of a chimney. You see, this Ratzinger fellow had received a promotion.

Most of the nicknames mentioned, incidentally, were coined, or at least popularised, by Private Eye in its «Street of Shame» page.

Scottish newspapers

Most national newspapers also put out a Scottish edition with a few vague attempts at localisation. This is influenced by the fact that political «left and right» are a bit different in Scotland than in the rest of the UK (particularly England). Someone who was fairly centrist in London terms would be seen as rather right-wing in Scotland. Naturally, the Tories are often barely a blip in Scotland, with races being between Labour, the Lib Dems, and the SNP (which is more leftist than Labour). One notable effect of this is that while The Sun is now solidly Tory in the rest of the UK, the Scottish edition now maintains an uncomfortable neutrality. Yes folks, that’s local opinion (and its effect on sales) winning out over the influence of Rupert Murdoch.

That said, there are also a few specifically Scottish titles, such as:

Northern Ireland

Freesheets

Notes

Many of these papers have Sunday editions, some of which are quite different (especially The Observer, which is considerably more moderate than The Guardian, & the Mail On Sunday, which is held to be a bit more credible than its daily counterpart). These papers often have a Sunday Leaked Document. There are also Sunday only papers, as mentioned earlier, not to mention numerous daily regional papers around the country from the Western Mail (Wales) to the Eastern Daily Press. Most places in the UK also have at least one local newspaper, where newspaper journalists traditionally start (and in most cases end) their careers. These are generally published weekly, often on a Friday, although it can be on any day. These papers generally (or at least stereotypically) deal with mind-numbingly parochial topics such as road repairs, coffee mornings, local council affairs, etc. Perhaps best summed up with Linda Smith’s favourite newspaper headline, «Worksop Man Dies Of Natural Causes». The Rochdale Observer (a typical example, best-known outside the titular town for being name-checked in Waterloo Road) once ran a front page story about a food fight, describing a chicken leg «arcing gracefully through the air» and featuring two interviewees arguing about the airspeed velocity of a Black Forest gateau. One said it was doing 10 mph and the other said 25.

News and politics magazines

. There you go, then. This is why so many Brits just get their news from topical quiz shows instead.