Newspapers- categories

All newspapaers typically meet the following four criteria:

• Publicity- its contents are reliable and accessible to the public
• Currency- its information is both valid and up to date
• Periodicity- Its published at regular intervals
• Universality- It covers a range of different and new topics e.g sport and travel

Most newspapers are aimed at a broad spectrum of readers, usually geographically defined, some focus on a certain age group or a certain group of readers as defined by what interests them. Newspapers are categorised by how often they are published, for example they could be weekly or daily.

Daily

A daily newspaper is issued every day, sometimes with the exception of national holidays or Sundays. Saturday and Sunday editions tend to be larger and include more specialised sections such as adverts or certain stories. Generally the staff of the newspaper work monday to Friday, so the paper largely depends on the news during the working days of the week as well as what the news was on the Sunday which they can then publish on a Monday for example a natural disaster or a big story within sport. Most newspapers are published in the morning, this way the public have a longer period in order to buy and read the newspaper, and may want to read it on the train to work for example. Afternoon or evening papers are aimed more at office workers and commuters.

Weekly

Weekly newspapers are fairly common and tend to be smaller newspapers, which may be a big weakness of a weekly newspaper as the daily newspaper will provide a lot more stories and information and so people would rather read a daily newspaper in order to read and find out as much information as possible as to what is happening around the world.

National

Most nations have at least one newspaper that circulates throughout the entire country, a national newspaper as contrasted to a local newspaper serving a city or region. In the UK there are numerous national newspapers including, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian. Large metropolitan newspapers have also expanded distribution networks and with effort can be found outside their normal area.