THE PRESS IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IN THE USA
Read the text and find out what British newspapers and magazines are popular. Use a dictionary when necessary. Say how 'quality' and 'popular' newspapers are different.The Press in Britain and Elsewhere
It's common knowledge that newspapers report the news. Published on a regular basis, usually daily or weekly, they also interpret events behind the news. In addition, newspapers give useful information, such as stock market prices, weather reports and television programmes.
They are also a popular source of reading for entertainment. People often buy newspapers for their feature articles on subjects of wide interest, such as travel and fashion, for their comics and crosswords, and for their regular columns on topics, such as gardening, eating out, show business, gossip and astrology. Together with other means of communication, such as radio, television, and magazines, newspapers form the media. Printed forms of the media, including newspapers and magazines are also called "the press".
Newspapers treat the news in two different ways. They can take a serious line, reporting and explaining the news with the aim of informing the readers as fully as possible. Alternatively they may take a more popular approach which requires more entertainment in the choice and presentation of stories, photographs and larger eye-catching headlines. Many newspapers combine the serious and the popular approach, but in the United Kingdom newspapers tend to be either one thing or the other.
Both serious and popular newspapers can be further divided into daily or weekly (depending on how often they are published), morning or evening (depending on when they are published) and local, national, or, in a very few cases, international (depending on the area over which they are sold).
Newspapers of general interest are supplemented by specialist newspapers, which publish news and stories for people with particular interests. Religious, financial, and sporting newspapers are examples.
The British are believed to be the greatest newspaper readers in the world. They read newspapers at breakfast, on the bus or on the train when they go to work and on the way back home. A symbol of the British Press is Fleet Street - a street in London that used to be home of most British national newspapers. Fleet Street is conveniently situated on the north bank of the River Thames close to a number of large railway stations, which makes it easy to deliver the papers to the trains taking them round the country. Fleet Street is also not far from such important British institutions as the Bank of England, the Stock Exchange, the Houses of Parliament and the Law Courts, which allows the Fleet Street journalists to keep an eye on things.
British daily papers are published from Monday to Saturday. The serious or quality papers such as The Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph are for those who want to know about important happenings everywhere, both domestic news and foreign news. Compared with Russian papers, British quality papers are very thick. They usually consist of separate sections such as Politics, Finances, Business, etc. It's not uncommon for a newspaper reader to use only one or two sections and throw the others away.
Popular papers or tabloids, such as The Daily Mail, The Sun or The Daily Express make a much easier reading and have a more general readership. Many popular papers run strip cartoons and humorous drawings, a lot of them have a woman's page, and readers' letters.
Nearly all papers pay special attention to sports news. The evening papers, such as The Evening News are often bought because people want to know the winner of a race or the result of football pools.
The Sunday papers are not Sunday editions of the daily papers but separate weekly editions coming out on Sundays. In addition to the news they usually provide interesting articles on arts, newly-published books, and gardening. Some of them, such as The Sunday Times have a very high reputation and the best critics and journalists write for them.
Kinds of Newspapers:
'Qualities':The Times; Financial Times; The Daily Telegraph; The Guardian; The Independent;
'Populars':Daily Express; Daily Mail; Daily Mirror; Daily Star; The Sun;
Some newspapers come out only on Sundays.
'Qualities':The Sunday Telegraph; The Independent on Sunday; The Observer; The Sunday Correspondent; The Sunday Times;
'Populars':News of the World; Sunday Express; Sunday Mirror; Sunday Sport; The Mail on Sunday;
There is a wide variety magazines in Britain. Their titles show that they cater for all tastes and interests:
Amateur Gardening;
British Chess Magazine;
Creative Needle Craft;
Country Life;
Do-It-Yourself;
Dog News and Family Pets;
Homes and Gardens;
Modern Knitting;
Good Housekeeping.
Answer the questions on the press.
1. What else do newspapers do besides reporting the news and interpreting it? 2. What kind of information can one find in a paper? 3. In what two different ways do papers treat information? 4. What do British papers tend not to do compared with other newspapers? 5. How can you tell a popular paper from a serious one by looking at it? 6. What categories of newspapers can you name? How do you categorize them? 7. What's the symbol of the British Press and why? 8. Names of what British quality papers and tabloids can you remember? 9. What are Sunday papers? 10. In what way do British quality papers differ from most of Russian papers?
Read the text about American newspapers and magazines and find out what is the most prestigious newspaper in the US.
The most prominent American newspapers are:
The New York Times
The Washington Post
The Los Angeles Times
The Boston Globe
The Chicago Tribune
The Christian Science Monitor
Many Americans consider The New York Times the nation's most prestigious newspaper which established itself as a serious alternative to sensational journalism. The paper gives coverage of important national and international events. Its reputation is so solid today that it is used as a major reference tool by American libraries, and is standard reading for diplomats, scholars and government officials.
People have begun to buy less newspapers, and the most important reason for this trend is probably the growing popularity of television which 65 percent of Americans use as their primary source of news.
Among popular magazines are:
Time
Newsweek
U.S. News & World Report
which give information on national affairs, business and science.
But the largest readership has been won by magazines that are full of advertisements and are good at leisure time, such as:
Cosmopolitan
The Ladies Home Journal
The Saturday Evening Post.
1. Say what makes The New York Times the most prestigious newspaper.
2. Say how American magazines can be classified.
